


the unlikely adventures of bitchface and go fuck yourself.

by caelescherries



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Child Neglect, David Acting as Max's Parental Figure | Dadvid (Camp Camp), NOT m//a//x//v//i//d, Other, dadvid, just nice dadvid, neglected max, not a fucking ship, sad boy max, writing this bc of my daddy issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24231241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caelescherries/pseuds/caelescherries
Summary: okay, so this was absolutely not what i had in mind! i was going to start with a one shot and relax but now i accidentally turned this in to a fucking series. anyways, in this  max grows up in a pretty shitty household and through his time at camp campbell this becomes lear to gwen and david. after much thought and work, they decide it's best to get him out of there. luckilyyyy, thanks to the magics of plot convenience, david is in  the foster care system because he wants kids but he's very single and has a hard time changing that. as soon as max is in the system he snatches that bitch up and then well i have no fucking clue right now so just read it and enjoy rn!!
Relationships: David & Max (Camp Camp)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 92





	1. grumpy beginnings.

**Author's Note:**

> okay i have no fucking idea why i turned this into something longer than a one shot, which was what i wanted, but i did, so here we are. this is my first camp camp fanfic so please please please leave criticism as well as anything that you would like to see in future chapters! much love and happy reading!
> 
> -ads

In which max is left to deal with a new situation, which he is, to say the least, not thrilled about.

Max wasn’t your average ten year old. He learned a lot more than most kids his age had. Not really school shit; he still couldn’t do long division and if you were to ask him what the fuck SohCahToa was, he would probably say bless you. Well, not really. He would probably assume that you had sneezed, but he definitely wouldn’t actually care enough to say bless you. He would most likely say something along the lines of “stay the fuck away from me with your fucking sneezing self”. He doesn’t care much for getting sick. 

No, what Max had learned was much more of a social and life skill sort of thing. Don’t trust anyone ever. Don’t talk back to your parents. Follow the rules and keep your head down. Do not tell anyone about home no matter what. Most important of all, never tell anyone about the last rule. That was the one that tended to get him in the most trouble. Max had been a rather talkative child until the age of eight. He used to freely tell his friends and teachers how exactly he got that black eye, or how his fingers ended up in a cast. That was until he came to school in a broken cast. He fell off the monkey bars, he’d claimed as his third grade class begged to be the first to put their names on his cast.

This was untrue. Max would probably call himself the God of monkey bars because he knew how to get across all fourteen of them frontwards and backwards, and he even knew how to get on top of them and stand up. Impressive shit for someone his age if you asked the rest of his grade. What had happened in reality was that he’d made the mistake of telling his teacher that daddy smacked him for falling asleep with the television on in the living room. A waste of electricity. Luckily, mommy was able to convince the teacher that no one had actually gotten hit, Max had just seen it on a television show and put it into reality when he found himself with a black eye. Daddy was less than pleased, despite the fact that he’d managed to evade trouble, and, in a drunken rage, sent Max tumbling down the stairs. The whole way to the hospital, rather than whispering hush words of reassurance to her bawling child, his mother had been telling him again and again the story that he must tell everyone unless he wanted it to happen again.

From that day forward, Max was no longer a talkative child. He didn’t want to slip up and tell someone how he’d gotten hurt, and so eventually, he simply stopped talking aside from the occasional “fuck off” or “fuck you”, both of which he’d picked up from pretending to be asleep at ungodly hours of the night and hearing his parents fighting the next room over. Hearing these phrases repeatedly from an eight year old were definitely surprising to his teachers, this became apparent to his parents when he got sent home not three times, not five times, but four times with behaviour slips from his teachers. Eventually, through a lot of thinking but mostly a few harder than normal smack to the face, Max realized that this was not helping himself in any way. So, he simply stopped talking. His teachers began to think there was something wrong developmentally when one of the most talkative and bright kids in their classes began talking a lot less. Luckily for Max, no further inquiries ever occurred after they asked why he was swearing so much in class. The American public school system really only cares so much about kids before they realize that whatever’s going on really doesn’t concern them. That might have been where the first rule; don’t trust anyone ever; really came in to play.

Despite his teachers half assed worrying, there was nothing wrong with Max developmentally. Sure, he may be slightly terrified when anyone taller than him (which was most anyone, mind you. While the average ten year old is about 134.8 centimeters tall, Max was steady at 122.3, a fact he was rather self conscious about) yelled, or even really raised their voice, or their hand, and had a surprising amount of trust issues for someone his age, he was just as smart, if not smarter than most his age. He was definitely better at picking up emotions and characteristics for people, thus making him way better at getting social cues. For example, he knew when someone was walking quickly but with large or loud steps that they were most likely pissed off, as opposed to someone who’s walking quickly but taking softer steps, those people are typically just in a rush. The different tones of sighs could display whether someone was angry or simply stressed, or concerned. These were mostly things that he had to focus on when he heard his dad enter the house.

Most kids realize around the age of ten or eleven that it’s no longer appropriate to call their parents mommy and daddy. Max called his father daddy until he was eight. Around then, he was no longer daddy, or even dad, he was father. His mom didn’t mind being called mom, or even mommy every now and then, unless father was around, which luckily was not too often. So, the household became father, mommy, and Max. This was all well and good. Sure, when he was asked to draw and label the family in art class, a few eyebrows were raised, but it seemed normal enough. Sometimes dads didn’t care for all that bullshit “daddy” shit, and so they didn’t go by it. Good enough. Max thought this too, which was why he was never surprised by the fact that no one asked. However, Max was also ten years old and under the assumption that everyone’s father smacked them when they don’t put enough jelly on their peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

Max lived in what he liked to call the worst fucking situation he could live in. When his parents- mostly his father- wasn’t beating him senseless, or scolding him, or demanding him to do something, they were completely ignoring him. When he would act out to get their attention, he would simply get hit, then promptly ignored. This shit was a never ending cycle. While he knew that he really should just accept no acknowledgement instead of bad acknowledgement, he simply couldn’t. At the young age of ten years old, he simply didn’t understand why he wasn’t good enough to be seen unless he was being bad. All he wanted was a congrats when he got 100%s on his spelling quizzes, or an amazing job when he would learn a new piano song, but no. He never got any of it, so he resorted to misbehaving. 

This did not last very long. He’d discovered that he could get attention by acting out about two years before his tenth birthday. He had never really cared for birthdays. They, like most other holidays in their household, with the exception of Diwali, weren’t considered important. He didn’t even get to celebrate it during school like a lot of other kids because he had a stupid summer birthday. While he typically would have ignored the day as he typically did, the other kids all made a really big deal about ten years old being in the double digits. He didn’t see why this was important, really, but he was a kid, and he’d be damned if the other kids got a big deal ten year old birthday party and he didn’t. He waited until they were in the grocery store, the bakery section, then begged his mother for a birthday cake, dropping to the ground and threatening a full on temper tantrum if he didn’t get one. His father wasn’t having this shit- with everyone who was in the section staring at them, he simply lifted Max from the ground, told his wife to finish the shopping, and brought their son to the car. He got one hell of an ass whooping and no birthday cake.

The day after his tenth birthday, he was told to pack some clothes- no indication as to exactly how many, just ‘some’ , then shoved into the back seat of his parents car. His mother started driving. She really didn’t say much, all until Max spoke up. They’d driven past the movie theatre, past the grocery store, and even past the big mall. They were getting closer to like- the woods and shit. He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t think that his parents were going to take him camping or something. No, his father wasn’t even there, and his mother's car and clothes both were much too fancy to want to go camping. Plus, his whole family collectively hated the outdoors. It was fucking boring and really hot during Ohio summers.

“Uhm, mom? Where the hell are we going?” He inquired, inching closer to the edge of his seat to get a better glance out the window. Her moment of silence before answering was all that Max needed to get his brain whirring. Well, she’d finally gonna kill me. Bit younger than expected, he thought, decently surprised as he scooted back to his original position but I am a pretty big asshole he reasoned, making a face as he accepted his fate. A fate that was quickly proven to be incorrect as his mother finally collected her thoughts.

“Language,” was what she began with, causing Max to roll his eyes. “And you, mera pyaar, are going to Camp Campbell. A summer camp,” she had responded, taking a left, where sure enough, a sign with the aforementioned name stood. Well, most of the name. The ‘bell’ part had fallen off and not been repaired, leaving the sign to read Camp Camp. Oh, thrilling. This was where he was going to be spending his summer. A non air conditioned, sweaty camp. Gross. However, if he had learned anything whilst living with his father in the last two years especially, he knew better than to argue. Instead, he sunk back in to his seat.

“What kind of summer camp is it?” He had asked meekly. He was quite the dull child, honestly. He didn’t have many active interests- none that his parents cared to hear, at least. He liked playing piano, something he’d been forced into doing by his father and which had surprisingly been something he had grown to enjoy. He also liked sewing- this was habit he’d picked up after his beloved teddy bear- Mr. Honeynuts- had his head ripped off during one of his fathers rage fits and he had to learn how to fix it or just to deal with a headless teddy bear. He chose the former, and bought himself a dollar sewing kit from a drug store near his house. Once his father found out he’d been mending his own clothes and stuffed animals with a sewing kit that was less than decent, he’d gotten the snot beaten out of him for daring to participate in such a feminine task. The kit was thrown away never to be seen, or spoken of ever again. Max missed it, if he were to be honest. Not that he would ever say it.

With both of these options being possible, but extremely improbable, he had pretty much no idea what else the camp could be for. His mother did nothing to help him out, because she had decided on staying silent for the rest of the drive. It was only about five more minutes anyhow. Max made no move to further the conversation. Silence was meant to stay like that unless an adult spoke. Father had always said that children were to be seen, not heard. Mom had never said a word of disagreement on this. She pulled to a stop at the entrance to the camp where two counselors stood- one girl with a ponytail, bangs, and bags under her eyes and an extremely dull look on her face, which was promising for a counselor who’s camp hadn’t even begun yet. The second counselor was a ginger guy who appeared to be doing some sort of salute? His hand was to his head and the third finger was being held down by his thumb- some camp thing, Max decided. 

“Here we are. Out,” his mother said, turning in her seat, and Max nodded obediently, unbuckling himself and opening his door, then looking expectantly at his mother, an eyebrow raised in a wordless question if she was coming with him or not. Max had never been one for new people. He always fussed about having to get new teachers in school, or a different cashier being at register two when they went shopping. He and new faces, particularly new adults, simply didn’t mix well. “You’re a big boy now, mera pyaar, you do not need me to go with you. Go. Have a good time at camp,” she said. If one were to expect that this was said with a sweet and reassuring tone, they would be wrong. It was more of a passive aggressive, no nonsense type of tone.

“Okay,” was all he said as he hopped out of the car, but he hesitated before he closed the door, glancing at the counselors- the girl had pulled her phone out, but the ginger dude had the same unwavering smile and weird camp salute thing going on. “Bye, mommy,” he said with a quiet voice. He wanted something. Anything in response. He wasn’t about to throw a tantrum in front of these random bitches that he was going to have to spend the rest of his summer with.

“Close the door, Maximillian, you’ll let the cold air out,” was all that he got in return. She had turned back to face out the window, partially because she didn’t want to see the hurt look on her son’s face, but mainly because she had an errand to run as soon as the kid closed the door. 

He hovered for only a moment longer, obeying and stepping away from the car before he could be scolded once again. With that, he watched her drive off, a weird feeling in his stomach making him wonder just how long it would actually be before he saw the car again. He didn’t think to ask when she’d be there to pick him up, for he had been much too focused on knowing what the camp was and why the hell he was going.

With a lump in his throat, he turned towards the counselors, both of whom seemed fairly surprised that whoever had driven him there- the windows on their car were tinted, like really fucking tinted- hadn’t gotten out to greet them, or see that he was safely directed in to the camp. The ginger one only had the confused face for a moment before seemingly getting over it.

“Hello there, Campbell camper! I’m David! Might I ask what your name is?” He inquired in an extremely chipper voice which Max could already tell was going to get on his last fucking nerve. On the bright side, he- David- had finally taken his arm out of the seemingly uncomfortable salute. 

“You’re irritating,” Max stated, earning a surprised look from David and himself both. He didn’t know exactly where the snarky tone had come from- perhaps out of pure spite from his mother leaving in such a rude fashion- but he was sort of digging it. His parents, those bastards, weren;t here right now. He didn’t have to be scaredy cat Max. He could talk as he pleased. “Max,” he added on after a moment of uncomfortable silence. 

“Well, Max,” David began, apparently choosing to just completely ignore the whole ‘you’re irritating’ remark “I think that you’re going to absolutely love it at Camp Campbell!” MAx knew he wouldn’t. “Why don’t I show you around the camp and my co-counselor Gwen here and wait around for everyone else to show! You’re the first one here and I wanna let you put your things down so that you’re nice and settled for activities when everyone else comes!” The female counselor, Gwen, looked as if she were going to testify, but she really had no time to do so before David was leading Max off down the short trail that led to what looked like a mess hall, a huge field, and a circle of tents. So this was the beginning of the end.


	2. the good, the bad, and the okay, i guess. part one; the okay, i guess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which max deals with the okay (he guesses) part of camp. the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! so you can start expecting weekly updates (every sunday) but i dont have a set time, just whenever i get around to it. as of right now, in trying to write part two (the good) but im really bad at writing happy shit i guess, so next weeks update will probably be late sunday afternoon or early early monday morning, but no later than that!! im pretty happy with this chapter, so i hope you like it too. please leave constructive criticism if you would like, or just shower me in compliments bc you KNOW im sensitive and love attention xoxo 
> 
> -ads

“Right over here is the mess hall and this is our camp flag! I can’t help but salute every time I see it!” David explained, then promptly put his hand to his head in the weird salute thing that he had been doing when Max had first arrived. His guess had been correct, and if he wasn’t running on mere spite as of right then, he might have been proud of himself for guessing right. However, he was, in fact, running on spite, so he really didn’t care. He merely rolled his eyes in an unamused fashion and turned his attention elsewhere as David’s hand returned to his side. He wished that he had been able to do more research on this place rather than having just been left there, because there was no hint as to what the fuck it could be if you were on the outside looking in, which Max technically wasn’t, but from the metaphorical stance, he was.

“Cool,” was his uninterested response. “So what exactly do you have at this hell hole anyways?” He inquired. An inquiry like that at home would have landed him a nice bruise on this cheek, or perhaps one on his knees from being knocked down. Now, he wasn’t completely sure why, but he did have the sneaking suspicion that David had no interest in sending him into a fit of tears. Maybe it was that painfully bright smile, or maybe it was the fact that the man, a grown ass man, had seen the camp flag in the corner of his eye and once again did the stupid salute thing. He could only pray that Gwen wasn’t nearly as enthused as David was about this shit hole of a camp, or else the scariest part about being abandoned at a camp in the middle of jack shit nowhere with only his faithful companion Mr. Honeynuts, would be just how much he’d want to off himself.

“Well, I’m sure glad you asked, Max! Here at Camp Campbell we have a varied assortment of different camps, all combined into one, brilliant camp! Allow me to give you a quick rundown,” The ginger responded, slowly pulling a guitar out of seemingly nowhere. Like seriously, Max had no fucking idea where that shit had come from. A quick peek behind the counselor assured that there was no weird magical vortex, or no hole in the mess hall's wall where he could have retrieved it. In his confusion, he had no time to prevent what would soon be arguably the worst 39 seconds of his life. 

After a song that must have taken centuries to write, not only because of how well it seemed to flow together, but with the ungodly amount of activities that were listed, Max had never found the comfort of his own bedroom so appealing. He was suddenly craving to go there. Once he gathered his thoughts- he had no idea what the fuck had just happened, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a poor choice to leave it that way. He merely looked at David in disgust, looking around once just to see if anyone else was there and had witnessed the absolute tom foolery that had just occurred, but it was only him. Him and David, who’s guitar had seemingly disappeared into wherever the fuck David had previously pulled it from. That shit was wack, but a mystery for another time. As of right then, he wanted to know what the fuck he was sent to this camp for.

Max was by no means interested in some of the shit that David had listed, those that he could remember being shit like football, scuba diving, miming and bomb defusal? While he couldn’t remember or simply didn’t hear what had been said thanks to the fast pace, he doubted that most anything else would have caught his interest either, so what the hell had his parents signed him up for? He wasn’t sure , but right then and there, he made it his personal goal to figure it out. Surely it would be in the paperwork somewhere, all he had to do was snoop around until he found it. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. 

Of course, he could simply ask a counselor to look at the forms for him, but he was pretty sure that he would die of embarrassment if he did. The last thing that he needed was to look clueless in front of these random fucking adults that he didn’t yet know. He had to assert dominance- show that he was going to be in charge here, and asking what his mommy had signed him up for because he’s a dumb kid that had no idea would definitely not help his case. This said, he made a mental note to keep Mr. Honeynuts out of sight. Of course, he had already planned on doing this, but just as an extra precaution. 

After what felt like at least two hours of pointless babble from David about the camp, but was really only around five minutes, another camper appeared, most likely having been sent in to find David by Gwen. In this short time period, Max decided another personal goal of his was going to be to make the counselors life a living hell. He knew that it wasn’t their fault that he was there, but his slowly penting up anger wasn’t going to simply disappear at the wave of a magical wand, and while he could let his anger out on other campers, he decided that since adults were the cause of his anger, it was only right to release it on some other adults. Really, all grown ups are the same. They hate life and they hate kids, they just do what they can for money to survive. David seemed to be trying to hide this, what Max saw as an obvious point, but Max knew that all those feelings were simply being hidden by his weird, almost uncomfortably bubbly personality. 

These thoughts aside, Max turned his attention to the new camper, who seemed just as confused as he had once he’d first gotten there, but probably for a different reason. The girl had pasted on elf ears, some weirdly pointy hat, and big circular glasses like Harry Potter or something. She also had a cape, which Max had the overwhelming urge to step on. She looked like she was all set for a good game of dungeons and dragons, and he hoped he was wrong because that was some nerd shit. Sure, having a group of friends where you could all sit around and play a game for hours at a time and several days a week, but doing that while pretending you’re a mage or an elf or something immediately made it a lot less cool and a lot more lame.

“Uhm, excuse me,” she approached the two somewhat cautiously. Well, actually, what she said sounded more like ‘uhm, excuthe me,’, Max noted. She had a lisp. He didn’t mind, and had no intentions of using it to like- make fun of her or anything. He had struggled with a stutter for a while before he went quiet. It’s a lot easier to not stutter when you give one or two word responses. “Is this dungeons and dragons camp?” Sometimes it was hard being right all the time. Max looked up at the red haired counselor expectantly.

“Sure is! Here at Camp Campbell, we have an assortment of different camps, and dungeons and dragons is included with them,” As Max had previously suspected might happen with each new arrival, the guitar appeared of of fuck knows where once again. Nope. One time was more than enough times for Max to not only know the song, but also absolutely despise it. He pushed the guitar back into whatever random void it came from. 

“You’re not going to do that everytime that someone comes,” Max said with a bland voice. The new camper seemed decently relieved with this, which almost made Max regret not letting her go through the same torture that he had. However, he didn’t regret it enough to have to hear that shit. He supposed he may tolerate it once everyone had arrived, but he would likely just disappear into the woods once everyone came to avoid that shit. 

“Right, okay,” The girl apparently had decided against arguing. This place seemed like a huge scam, but she apparently had enough faith in her parents to trust that they wouldn’t send her to a shitty place. Poor kid. “Well, my name is Nerris the Cute, and I’m a mage in my realm,” she stated proudly, her hands moving to her hips and pushing her cape back dramatically as if there were wind blowing it. There wasn’t. This was just some weird magic kid. Well, at least the rest of the campers couldn’t be half as bad as she was.

Thirty minutes later, Max was proven wrong. Very wrong. They could apparently get much, much worse. After the one called Nerris had arrived, there was a girl with blonde hair that had some interestingly placed streaks of purple in them, who called herself Ered. Her name was Meredith, but she allegedly went by the middle part which was, as she would say “totally cool”. There was some weird magic kid with a top tiny top hat on his head who made a rabbit disappear but he couldn’t seem to bring it back. There was another who was running around with a fish bowl on his head. He only introduced himself as Space Kid. David didn’t inquire further. There was some kid who was what one could only explain as everyone’s high school drama teachers nightmare, someone with obvious anger issues, who within the first five minutes pummeled both the theatre kid and the magic kid with elf ears to the ground. Admirable, really. The last one to show up was some german kid with an awfully suspicious haircut and an affinity for art. He also waved in a less wave-y sort of way, and a more really concerningly offensive sort of way. Yeah, maybe that was an appropriate place for people to stop showing up. 

The day was slowly drawing to a close. It was getting dark and David and Gwen were trying their hardest to coerce all of the rambunctious children into a circle around a campfire. David genuinely seemed excited to do go around the fire and sing some stupid campfire songs, but Gwen was looking more than suicidal. Exactly how Max felt.

He was decently surprised with how this new personality had blossomed; he went from being decently quiet and awkward, to being a cynical, jaded, brand new Maximillian Mukerherjee. He liked it. He figured that summer living could totally be something new. No one here even needed to know that he wasn’t actually some douchebag. Well, no, he had always been a douchebag, but he had never really gotten to prance about flaunting it. At school when he pulled off his stellar schemes, he could never be the one to take credit in case his parents caught wind of the incident. Here, he was sure that if he wrecked enough havoc they’d end up hearing about it, but he knew for a fact that they wouldn’t drive their asses all the way to camp to deal with him. He could deal with it once summer ended, a fact that he was more than okay with. 

Max was often the odd man out. He used to care, but then he realized that he shouldn’t let a bunch of white kids make him feel bad for not wanting to hang out with them anyways. There was no point in getting close to people and making friends because they’d just double cross you or some bullshit. Besides, at camp, this worked to his advantage. While no one really made friends, they seemed to somewhat drift towards each other, whether it was subconsciously or not, they just seemed to choose who they liked. Max would admit, he was surprised that people drifted toward the scary pummell-y guy more than they drifted towards him. The rules were two to three to a tent and no co-ed tent sharing, something that neither of the counselors seemed to care about but was allegedly a big deal to the parents.

The art kid- that mother fuckers name was Dolph, fukig Dolph?? Surely Max couldn’t be the only one who realized how fucked up this was- ended up seeming drawn to the dramatic arts kid, and the one who lost his rabbit. Apparently their names were Preston and Harrison, but Max preferred theatre kid and magic kid two; a different type of magic. The one with the fish bowl on his head, who had given no further implication as to what his name was other than Space Kid, seemed to like the bully, Nurf, quite a lot. This seemed problematic, in Max’s humble opinion, but what did he know? This left magic kid one and Ered to be sharing one. While it would seem that Max was going to be forced to share a tent with fish bowl and Nurf or nothing, he was glad to see that this was not the case. Three different groups, yet four tents. Hell yeah. 

“I want my own tent,” he stated once everyone else had gone to put their shit up. “Everyone else already has one, plus there’s a left over one, which would just be a waste of space if someone, namely me, didn’t get it,” he said to David. While there was a slight questioning tone to his voice, it was more of informing the ginger counselor that he was, in fact, going to have this tent to himself. David seemed to think on it for a moment- usually he would give out some information as to how this was going against the rules of the buddy system and how Max needed at least one person sharing his tent with him in case there was some sort of emergency or something, but one look at the short boys face indicated that he simply wouldn’t care. David knew he had to pick his battles with this kid, so rather than cause unnecessary conflict, he decided that this would be one battle that he wouldn’t fight.

“Alrighty, but you have to be extra careful if you’re going to be by yourself,” David began, only to notice that Max had already headed to the tent as soon as he’d heard the beginning of 'alrighty'. He wasn’t one to choose favourites, it was mean and wrong, but he would be lying if he wasn’t oddly interested in this kid. He considered making him come back and listen to what he had to say, but again, David had to pick and choose his battles, and this was another one not worth fighting. Instead, he decided to go check on the rest of the campers to see if anyone needed anything.

Max was more than thrilled, but he kept his uncaring composure until he got to the confines of his very own tent. Once there, he threw his backpack down and a triumphant smile spread across his face. He couldn’t believe that he had just scored his own tent for a whole ass summer. He still wasn’t particularly glad that he was there at all, but it was better to have a whole tent to himself than to have to share with bitches he didn’t know and/or didn’t like. There wasn’t, like, a dresser or anything in his tent, only a lame bed that was probably what most people considered a cot. It looked like something right out of a book. With three of these in the room, there was no room for anything to actually put his clothes in. He decided that they would have to stay in is bag, where they would most likely get wrinkled. He had never really cared about that, but his father always had. Well, father wasn’t here, so did it really matter if his pants were slightly crinkled? Max decided it really didn’t. He picked his bag from the ground and grabbed his one true friend from it, then put the bag on a vacant bed. He decided on the bed that was on the left side because he didn’t want the furthest one from the door(this one could be seen by anyone who simply looked in the tent) and the right sided one just weirded him out. Left was always right.

After a supper that he didn’t eat because it looked and smelled like a dead rat, though it was supposed to be mashed potatoes, and a campfire, which was filled with camp songs and some boring explanations of rules and all that shit, Max was more than happy to retreat to his tent. He laid in his bed, staring blankly at the roof of the tent. He wasn’t tired. It was ten o’clock, which he was pretty sure was the camps designated bedtime, and his bedtime at home too, but he was much too lost in thought to sleep. Why the fuck was he even here? He wanted to go home. He hugged Mr. Honeynuts close. He had waited for David to check through the tents for anyone in need one last time before he pulled him out of his hiding place, which was really just under the blankets. Well this camp wasn’t bad. Don’t get him wrong, it absolutely wasn’t good, but at least he wasn’t getting yelled at. He wasn’t getting hit, and he wasn’t getting ignored. Most everything he did earned a response from one or both of the counselors. So maybe this summer wouldn’t suck if he got stuck there the whole time. It wouldn’t be good, but it wouldn’t be bad either. It’d just be okay, he guessed.


	3. the good, the bad, and the okay i guess. part two; the good.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which max gets to experience the good parts of camp (not that he would ever admit that they were good}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this chapter is rocky, im not very good at writing happiness, but i wanted to give my boy max some love before i subject him to the torturous existence that is dealing with an abusive family and getting out of the situation bc that shit aint all sunshine and rainbows and boy do i have some shit in store. anyways, feel free to leave constructive criticism in the comments, and i hope you have a lovely day or evening!! much love!!
> 
> also!! sorry some of these paragraphs are mad long idk why they are but im too lazy to see if i can shorten them sorry xo
> 
> -ads

Max had been led to believe that he would spend his summer at this camp friendless. He honestly wouldn’t mind this too much, honestly. It wasn’t that there was anything specific wrong with the other campers, it was just sort of… well… everything. They were nerdy, or thought they were much cooler than they actually were, or had knives that they got from god knows where, or they just reminded him way too much of Hitler and he didn’t want to get into that mess. He would be fine watching from the sidelines and wreaking havoc on his own, but then, two weeks into his stay at the camp, two more campers arrived. The summer went from ‘eh’ to ‘less eh’ real quick.

Nikki and Neil were like- the exact opposite of everyone else at the camp. Sure, they had their own weird little things, like Neil was a fucking nerd and Nikki was, well, she had a lot of personality, but they were muuuch more interesting. On their very first interaction, Neil had accompanied him on an attempt to escape the camp, and Nikki, being the delightful agent of chaos that she is, created a diversion to help them. Apparently, all it takes to make lifetime friends is to make an escape from a shitty camp, then promptly crash your escape car. You don’t really have to know anything about each other. Typically, Max wasn’t sure that he would be friends with someone as geeky as Neil, or as…. Nikki as Nikki, but under the given circumstances, he delightfully welcomed them into his tight inner circle.

While Neil and Nikki’s arrivals did mean that he now shared a tent (he wasn’t mean enough to make his new friend sleep with Nurf and Space Kid), the single con was overweighed by the pros of the situation, which were that he now had two new friends, and that he now had two more people who were willing to help him make David and Gwens lives a living hell. It was working. Of course David very rarely showed any sign of defeat, but at least Gwen seemed done with them. Despite what one would think, Max and Gwen got on quite well. Sure, they hated one another and the camp, but that was something that they had in common. Their mutual loathing of Camp Campbell and life in general was one thing that made the shit hole tolerable. 

Another thing that made the place tolerable was the infinite amount of schemes that Max was able to come up with. Honestly, no matter how last second they had to be, or how much they had to be improved, they honestly always worked out elaborately and they were amusing to watch unfold. As long as Gwen didn’t get hurt (she usually didn’t) and no matter how often David got hurt, everyone seemed impressed. It was almost fun getting to be able to put so much brain power into one thing and having people praise it. Well, he usually got scolded by one of the counselors, but the other campers thought they were cool. Plus, even David could appreciate how much thought, effort, and talent actually went into the planning. 

Campfires were a regular occurrence at Camp Campbell. Every night- save for Saturdays, those were the kids one free day- they would all gather around the huge fire. Max honestly thought this shit was fucking stupid, because it got crazy hot at night, and the fire definitely didn’t help that at all. Friday nights were reserved for stories, typically spooky, but there were the occasional random one’s that didn’t fit into any real category, but every other night were exclusively camp songs. Fucking camp songs. Max had discovered that the average human (him) could only get through half of a camp song before wanting to jump into Lake Lilac, and he didn’t even know how to swim. Everyone else seemed to hate it too, but David was none the wiser. Every night at seven, right after dinner, they would be forced to go out and sit on their stupid logs to first watch David struggle to light a fire for about ten minutes, then sing camp songs that he relentlessly encourage everyone to sing along to. No one did.

Whilst this sounds terrible, and don’t misinterpret this, it was, Max couldn’t help but enjoy it, just a tad. They rarely actually listened to the counselor sing, he was usually background noise as he, Nikki, and Neil plotted their shenanigans for the next day. He enjoyed having this time to themselves, despite the fact that it wasn’t really meant to be for scheming. There was something about their hushed whispers next to the loud crackling of the fire, and the even louder camp songs that just gave him these weird sort of butterflies in his tummy. 

All of these things were the good of Camp Campbell. Max would nary admit that he liked anything about the camp. See, as time went on, the facade that Max had been putting on- the whole cynical, uncaring routine- it was becoming a lot less of an act and a lot more natural. Max had always been a little shit at heart, and now that he was decently sure that he was out of harm's way (until the end of the summer, at least), it was a lot easier to act on how he felt. Four weeks into camp, he felt no shame in flipping bitches off, or telling someone that they were the bane of his existence, which, for the record, David actually wasn’t.

Max quite liked David. He was enthralled by how the weird bastard always seemed to have a bright smile on his face. How, no matter what hell Max put him through, he always tried to make a lesson out of it. He didn’t mind getting his ass beat by the QM or some random creature or something. He was proud of Max. Always said it took a lot of brains to put together such a well oiled scheme, or to be able to break into the counselors cabin and snoop without getting caught, or to steal his phone and keep it hidden for literal days on end. He was never late to praise him on what he did, no matter how bad it was. It was fucking weird.

Even his scoldings were unlike what Max had ever experienced. Rather than yelling or screaming or hitting, David would sit him down with a stern-ish face, and say that he was very disappointed. Like, the fuck does that even mean??? Max had no idea, but it made him feel pretty weirdly guilty, and while he wouldn;t ever actually apologize, he was sure to tone the next adventure down ever so slightly every time. Of course, after that they’d be back on track until the next scolding. He was pretty sure that David had actually caught on to his pattern, but the ginger never commented on it, so Max was never completely sure.

There were days when he, Neil, and Nikki would all together skip the days activities. Like, usually they’d go along with whatever they were supposed to be doing, but tamper it to make it go off the rails, but sometimes they all made the collective decision to just skip whatever they were meant to be doing. What Max recalled to be the first account of this, was a day that they were meant to be focused on theatre camp. Max hated theatre kids with passion, Neil was simply not cut out for the theatre (said that even the nerds were above theatre kids in the food chain of children's popularity), and Nikki refused to touch the stage unless she got to be part of a revolution, or a cool orphan (she was more than disappointed when David made the rule that knives weren’t allowed in improv). So, the three of them waited for everyone else to make their way to the activity field, then promptly headed the other direction. They were not going fast, by any means, but they were walking at a pace that would get them outta sight as quickly as possible without seeming suspicious. QuarterMaster gave them a sort of look as they passed by, but Max wasn’t sure if it was a curious or suspicious look, or just QM being QM. It was hard to tell, most of the time, and although Max was great at reading people, he doubted that he’d ever be able to read that one. He wasn’t even completely sure that QM was a fucking human.

Those days when they skipped the activities were some of Maxs’ favourites. Usually they’d go wander aimlessly in the forest (per Nikki’s request. Had it been up to Max or Neil, they’d have spent their time in either the mess hall, or the counselors cabins). Nikki would be herself- chase squirrels and just pretend she were an animal, for the most part, while Max and Neil would casually conversate. Well, Neil casually conversated, Max would chime in every now and then with a snarky one liner that was meant in a good hearted way. It had really only taken about three of these days for Max to get to know everything that there was to know about Neil. He was eleven, one year older than Max, and was due to start seventh grade at the end of the summer. He had skipped sixth grade entirely. His parents had divorced when he was five, and he visited his father on the weekends and over school breaks, but was with his mother for the most part. He favoured his mother over his father, because she was a scientist, and a lot less embarrassing. It was almost like she actually understood when to not be totally lame. His dad never really got the memo. He fully planned on attending college (Harvard or Yale, but Cal-Tech was his safety school) and he had been in an e-relationship for about a year. Their one year anniversary was apparently on July the 24th, and Max promised that he would steal David’s phone on that day so thay Neil could wish his lame ass boyfriend a happy anniversary. 

He’d learned a lot about Nikki as well. Her parents weren’t together either, but she was much closer to her father than she was her mother. She loved her mom, of course, but apparently she had a hard time actually listening to her kid. Her dad, however, never did. He understoodNikki in a different way that Neil’s mother understood him. Nikki and her father, a man she referred to only as ‘Bear’(apparently that was what ‘the boys’ called him, whoever the fuck they were), were thik as theives, an expression that Max had ocne seen in a movie about a mafia. He didn’t know what it meant, but it seemed suiting. They apparently went camping pretty much every time that they saw each other, and they had two pitbulls, one of which was named Princess, and the other was named Psycho, courtesy of Nikki. Her name was technically Nicolette, but she hated that shit, and no one ever called her that except her mother and teachers. She was a former Flower Scout, but she’d gotten bullied out of the group, due to her more adventurous personality. She claimed that she didn’t really mind though, because they were some ignorant fucking cunts, and she way preferred Camp Campbell. 

Max found all of this information very interesting. It was nice to get to know his friends. Despite having only met each other a few weeks prior, it felt as though they’d been friends for forever. He liked it. He was much more hesitant about sharing the details of his own life. He gave them something every now and then; he knew piano, he really liked dogs, and he was a decent student. He was always quick to change the subject when it was his turn, and his friends, being kids and all, were usually okay with this, and that was what Max liked most. Adults always tried to pry out every single detail from him, when people his age always just shrugged and went along with it. Grown ups could learn a thing or two from kids, in Maxs’ opinion.

It took four of these walks, spread out in about two weeks, for Gwen and David to realize that their activities were going suspiciously smoothly and it took about thirty minutes to figure out why. The troublesome trio, a name that Max himself had come up with, was nowhere to be seen. It took ten minutes of frenzied yelling for them to appear from within the shrubbery of the forest. Once they did, Gwen watched the other campers, and David marched them to the mess hall for a scolding. This would normally stress Max out, but he’d come to realize that even Space Kid was more of a threat to him than David was. That being said David did seem overly serious this time, though it was more over concern for their safety than it was over actually being mad. Max had taken the blame for peer pressuring them into going with him with an unamused eye roll. He wasn’t oblivious to David’s obvious favouritism, and figured that he may as well use it to his advantage. After a firm finger waving, they were free to go back to the activity field. Four days later, they went on another walk. They continued to get scolded, but they honestly never cared, and after a while of them going and returning safely, David cared a lot less too. Of course, he was always sure to scold them and make sure that they were okay when they got back, but the talks got much shorter and less stern. It was clear that unless David watches them every second of every day, they were going to keep happening. While he would love nothing more than to do that, the other campers were too rowdy for Gwen to handle on her own. And so, every now and again, the troublesome trio became a bit less troublesome, and a bit more connected with each other and nature. Man, that shit sounded hella gay when it was put like that.

Though all of the aforementioned things were delightful, even Max would admit if it were forced out of him, there was one thing that seemed to trump all of this. Lake Lilac. Lake Lilac was the place he went when he needed an escape from everything else. Whether it be David’s unnatural happiness, or the other campers constant and annoyingly loud talking, or even when he woke up at night from a bad dream, or those nights when he couldn’t fall asleep at all. While he was by no means a professional, jhe was decently sure that he had insomnia.

He’d done research (on David’s phone, of course) because after going two full days without sleeping at camp, away from his stressful home life, he was wondering what the fuck was going on. He had learned that there were two types of insomnia, and after deciding that acute insomnia didn’t really make sense in his situation, chronic insomnia seemed to be the safest bet. Chronic insomnia, he had learned, was disrupted sleep for three or more nights a week for three or more months. This suited him well. Even at home, he could go days on end (he had learned that his own personal record was four) without sleep, and it constantly left him with less and less of a will to wreak havoc. These were perfect opportunities to go to the lake.

He didn’t know what it was, exactly, about the lake, but something about the way that the gentle waves crashed against the dock was soothing. He didn’t know how to swim, and he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t go in the lake even if he did, so he usually just sat on the dock with his feet dipped in the cold water, staring aimlessly at the abyss. To most, this may not sound like a good time, per say, but Max adored it. It was his own time. No one ever bothered him there, and he enjoyed himself almost more than when he was with his friends. Not quite, but almost. He could close his eyes, breathe in the scent of polluted water, and simply relax. It never really helped him to go to sleep, but it was better to be there rather than in a hot and stuffy tent with a loudly snoring Neil. Seriously, the guy was a light sleeper, Max was surprised that the bastard didn’t wake himself up with how fucking loud he was. At the lake, Max didn’t have to hear the snoring, he only heard the comforting sound of soft and gentle waves.

It didn’t really matter which of these activities were his favourite, because they were all much, much better than at home. He was never really worried about anything, because almost everything went as planned, and Max quite liked this. Cynical as he may have been, he could still take the time to appreciate the good parts of Camp Campbell. They were seldom, but they certainly existed.


	4. the good, the bad, and the okay, i guess. part three; the bad.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which max experiences the only part of camp left to experience. the bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all aint got a clue how hard i worked on this chapter. i typically aim for at least 3000 words bc hi im lazy and i have a job but this chapter is over 6000 words, which isn't a lot, but im really proud. it's a bit jumpy, so bear that in mind, my apologies, but yeah. i hope it hits you in the feels and i hope youre ready for some good ol' gwen and david time next chapter!! please leave feedback i wanna know how yall think and yeah.
> 
> also idk have yall seen those camp camp animatics of school of rock songs??? because im fucking obsessed eith them and now i cant stop listening to school of rock sksjsjs. anyways, have a great day!
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Camp could be good, and camp could be okay, but most often of all, camp sucked ass. Okay, maybe he was a bit melodramatic. It wasn’t the most often that it was bad- it was mostly just okay- but when shit was bad, it left him feeling bad for a long ass time. Of course he always acted as if everything was chill, or at least like he didn’t care how shit was, but deep down inside, he was just a kid. A kid whose parents didn’t care enough to sign him up for a specific camp, they just sent him to one where they had everything.

He’d caused a huge mess. People were throwing what they could barely call food at one another. Nikki was biting people. Space Kid was tied to the ceiling fan, somehow. Nurf was beating the fuck out of Preston. This was all caused by one mastermind who’d thrown what could have possibly been broccoli at Nurf, then dramatically gasping and asking why Preston had done such a thing. It went downhill from there. As hell was breaking loose, Neil was hiding to save his ass since he was the most expendable after Space Kid, who was a bit preoccupied, and Gwen and David were trying to calm everything down, Max slipped out of the mess hall and headed straight towards the counselors cabin. He knew that he’d find the papers there- he’d done a fair bit of snooping when he could and had a general idea as to where everything was- and he could know what he was there for. He could only hope it wasn’t something totally gay like archery, or horseback riding, or something. 

Unluckily for him, it wasn’t either of those. It was nothing. He would have preferred to be signed up unwillingly for horseback riding than to be signed up for nothing at all. He stared at his enrollment sheet. Max. 10. That was it. It didn’t have his full name, the camp he was signed up for. He decided that surely this couldn’t be the only paper with his information. He looked through the other papers desperately, hoping to see anything else that could be related to him, but nothing. Preston Goodplay. Theatre Camp. 10. 2169982937. 2340 St. Claire Ave. read one paper. Another read Harrison's information, all of it. Then Neil’s. Nikki’s, Nerris’s Ered’s. Everyone’s. Then he was led to look back at his own paper once again. Max. 10. It was a stupid fucking paper. He shoved the papers back into the drawer from which he’d received them. He hated this fucking camp. He hated this stupid cabin. He kicked a trash can on his way out, which prompted the trash can to fall over and spill its insides to the floor and a pain to shoot up his foot. 

He was angry the rest of the day. He was always angry though, so it wasn’t like anyone noticed. No one besides David, that is. He seemed to notice that Max’s scheming was missing something. Not a lot of something, because his plan to tie both he and Gwen to the flag pole and raid the freezer for ice cream or other frozen treats still went pretty much without a flaw, but he seemed less thrilled than he would usually be to tie up his least favourite person. He’d tried to ask the little boy if he were okay, but he got the bandana untied from his neck and promptly stuck into his mouth instead of a response. Max wasn’t much of a talker.  
Max spent the next few days in a funk, milling about his adventures aimlessly. They were a lot less fun with the same one thought constantly running through his head. Why hadn’t he been signed up for a camp??? Did his parents simply not know what his interests were? Why didn’t they just ask him? Why hadn’t they even asked him if he wanted to go to a fucking summer camp in the first place??? Each time, his thoughts were brought back to the same one solution. His parents simply didn’t care. They didn’t care to pay attention to their child’s interests. They didn’t care enough to ask him about his interests. They didn’t care enough to ask him if he even wanted to go to a summer camp. 

If you were to remember back to when you were ten, you would likely remember the big issues in your life at the time. Sandy decided that she wanted to date Jason; your crush. You couldn’t understand how to add fractions, and your father sitting you at the kitchen table and insisting that you do it the way he learned it, not the way that you learned in class was certainly not helping. You wanted to ride your bike out past 6:30, but you simply weren’t allowed to. These are all pretty common childhood struggles, and things to be worried about. Worrying about whether or not your parents actually gave a shit about you, however, is not a common childhood struggle, yet this is what Max was left to deal with.

He simply could not understand why. Why didn’t they care? He was an okay kid. Quiet, for the most part. He did alright in school. He didn’t snitch on his father anymore, and he was always very quiet when he got hit, no matter how loud the voice in his head yelled at him that it hurt. He was always sure to wait until he got to his bedroom and had shoved his head into a pillow before he allowed his sobs to come out. He was an okay kid. So why hadn’t they signed him up for anything? Why hadn’t they written in their address, or their phone number?? It didn’t make any sense to him, and it slowly but surely got to him. 

He woke up from nightmares in the middle of the night. Two or three times every week, he would shoot up as if he’d been shot from a canon, panting like crazy and glancing around to check his surroundings. It was always one of two dreams. In the first, he was with his mom at a park, then they packed up and started to head home. Once they got there, Max would hurry inside, only to see that there was nothing in his house. No furniture, and no sight of his father. Nothing. He would always turn to ask his mother what was going on, but by the time he had, she was gone too. He was left with nothing. No one. He would go to his neighbours house to see if they knew anything, but they claimed to have no idea who he was, leaving Max all by himself in a neighbourhood in which no one knew him. He was alone, with no mother or father to comfort him. Usually after checking one or two different neighbours houses for help, he’d wake up. While he didn’t get to see his parents to calm him down, it was reassuring to see the slow breathing of Neil right across from him, just to show that he wasn’t actually alone.

The second dream was one that was worse by far. He was doing dishes. He wasn’t very good at them, his abnormally short self and small hands working to his disadvantage, so he always broke a glass. His dad would come storming in, and Max always thought it was to help him- he’d cut himself across the palm with a shard of the cup- but he never came to help. Instead, he yelled at the boy, and smacked him in the cheek. This caused him to fall off of the stool he’d been standing on and fall to the ground. Usually, it was right before he thunked his head on the ground when he woke up. Sometimes, he remembered hitting his head, then his dad would just yell at him to get up. He never did. Not until he was yanked to his feet, at least. This one, for obvious reasons, was the one that prevented him from going back to sleep. He would stay awake, staring at the ceiling of the tent and clinging to Mr. Honeynuts for dear life, trying to panic in a way that was quiet enough that Neil wouldn’t hear and wake up. This was a hard task, considering the boy was a hell of a light sleeper, but he always seemed to manage. He would usually sneak out of their tent to Lake Lilac. 

An event that was worse than these dreams was what Max was sure would be hard, but that was until he heard about Parents Day. A day dedicated to showing off whatever they had been shipped off to camp for to their parents. Upon hearing about it, Max had felt a huge lump in his throat for two reasons. For one, the fact that technically, he hadn’t been sent to camp for any reason other than his parents wanting to get rid of him, and the worrisome idea that his parents wouldn’t even show. They hadn’t called to confirm it, nor had they sent any letter of confirmation (or any letter at all, for that matter). He spent the day more spiteful than normal, watching his friends and his acquaintances walk around with their parents, showing them the shit hole. At least his parents weren’t missing much in not showing up. The worst part, however, was David and Gwen. They were made to act as his parents until his real one’s showed, something that he insisted time and time again was simply not going to happen. No one was listening to him; he was just a kid. What did he know? 

The only time that he had really faltered throughout the day was when he was talking to Space Kid. He’d taken notice to the fact that like himself, SK had no adults lingering at his side. He found himself feeling bad when the boy said that his parents weren’t coming. That is, until the boy had clarified that his uncle was coming instead. He had promptly knocked the cardboard rocket ship down on top of him after that. He didn’t feel bad about it either.

That was the first time that he had cried at camp. He hadn’t wanted to- it majorly dented his tough guy persona- but he was overwhelmed. His parents really didn’t fucking care. They’d never really attended shit like this anyways, but for some reason, this one hurt. Maybe it was everyone else’s parents being there, or maybe it was the look that David gave him, that he could only really describe as pity once he saw the cap, or lack thereof, that Max had been signed up for. While the night had actually ended on a high note, pizza and a ridiculously quick hug for David, it gave him a hint as to how the rest of the summer was going to be. If he had been holding anything in before, he had definitely decided to let it out now. He no longer bothered to lighten up his schemes after David gave his disappointed speeches, for he genuinely couldn’t care less about how disappointed he was. He got disappointed too, David wasn’t fucking special. His nightmares went from every few nights, to every night that he ended up sleeping, which made him do his best to sleep less and less. 

Of course, this is a tiresome lifestyle to withhold as a ten year old. A ten year old should be getting about ten to eleven hours of sleep each night, while Max was pushing about four hours of sleep about three nights a week. He couldn’t even get three consecutive nights, it was more light every other night, then he’d go a couple without sleeping at all. It was fucking exhuasting. He found himself snapping and becoming much more irritable than before, and while most didn’t seem to notice, he couldn’t ignore the glances that Gwen and David would share. The bastards. Who were they to exchange knowing glances as if they knew what he was going through? They didn’t know shit. If he weren’t four feet tall, he would definitely beat them up.

After Parents Day, the walks that the troublesome trio often went on became much more scarce. Not because Max would rather be doing activities, just because he was much too tired to be walking around in a forest without tripping over rocks or walking into trees or something. Nikki and Neil seemed concerned, but Max had insisted that he merely had become much more set on giving David and Gwen hell, and they figured that this was fair enough. They still went on enough of them to be satisfied.

It was tiring, staying up all night, and falling asleep only to wake up a few hours later from a terrible nightmare. On the bright side, there was coffee. Coffee and Lake Lilac. One of the nights in which he had woken up from a shitty dream, gotten coffee in a mug that he had found in one of Gwen's drawers, and had sat himself down at the edge of the dock, he’d heard footsteps coming from behind him. This wasn’t particularly concerning. Space Kid had the tendency to sleep walk (when Max was feeling generous, he’d gently coerce the kid back to his bed) and he was pretty sure that the QuarterMaster never slept, because he was always doing random shit at night, walking around and dragging duffle bags about. There was something mad creepy about QM, and Max had made a silent vow to himself that if the man came withing five feet of him that he would scream rape. 

When he turned around to get an idea as to who was behind him, (he wasn’t feeling generous today, and had it been Space Kid, he definitely would have coerced the boy into the lake rather than his tent) he was surprised to see neither QM, nor Space Kid, but David. He was in pyjamas, as one typically was at 4am, but he didn’t look as though he’d been asleep. Max’s first thought was that the bastard QuarterMaster had ratted him out. He then remembered seeing a flash of light from Spooky Island, and recalled hearing all of the too familiar wails and moans from the hellish place, which ruled that theory out. The freak was too busy having weird furry/monster orgies in Campbell's mansion. The idea gave him shivers, but he remembered that David was now coming towards him at a decently fast pace. Fuck. He downed the rest of his drink, figuring that if he was going to be sent to bed, he may as well still be able to finish his drink. David didn’t really approve of the whole coffee thing, said it stunted his growth. Max didn’t care.

Much to his surprise, David seemingly didn’t care to scold him. He simply sat down beside him, causing Max to scooch to the very side of the dock. This wasn’t really necessary, the dock was more than big enough for a lanky twenty four year old, and a below average sized ten year old, but it just reassured Max, for some reason or another. 

“You’ve been doing this a lot,” David said. It wasn’t really a question, more of a statement. David wasn’t oblivious. He too, had a hard time sleeping, and oftentimes found himself staying up for eight hours a night just waiting for the next day to come. This was usually only about three times a week though. He liked staying in bed, sure, but he was quite fond of the outdoors. A few times, he had found himself going on a nice, relaxing midnight walk. The first time he’d done this, he’d seen an oddly short figure walking out from the mess hall. Seeing what was obviously a camper out of bed, he started towards the figure with his stern voice all ready. 

Typically, he would give them a talking to, then make sure that they got into bed safely, but he hesitated once he heard the soft, sniffling noises coming from the figure, even more so when he realized that the small figure was Max. He knew that Max was definitely not the type to be okay with being seen crying, and while the parental side of him was yelling to go and comfort the crying kid, the common sense in him was telling him that he could definitely provoke a bad reaction from Max, and he knew that the young boy would create a scene. So, much to his own dismay, he swallowed his parental parts and watched the crying boy walk to the dock with a cup of coffee in hand, which in hindsight, sounded way fucking creepy. He felt terrible watching it, but he didn’t want to embarrass the boy. He was alright at reading kids like Max. Of course, there was a special kid. No one was exactly like Max. That kid had been through shit, and while David didn’t really know what had happened to the boy, he knew that it was pretty fucked up. 

David had had to go through a shit ton of classes in order to be deemed suitable as a foster parent. He had always wanted to be a dad, honest, but he had always had a particularly hard time creating a loving relationship that was long term enough and close enough to have a kid. Even when he had come close, he didn’t really find interest in, well, making his own kid. When he decided that the best course of actions would be to become a foster kid, he had told himself that he wanted to help a kid out of a tough spot. He wasn’t like, scared of having his own kid, and he definitely didn’t have a hard time with sex or anything, he just thought that it would be better on everyone if he helped a kid that needed it. That was what he told himself. That was what he told others, 

Anyways, having taken a myriad of different classes on how to foster a kid, he could tell signs of abuse and neglect. Max showed signs of both. For one thing, he was pretty small for his size, not only height wise, but weight wise as well. He had the tendency to flinch away at loud noises and he hated any type of physical contact. He was always surprised when he got praised for simplistic things (this made David do it more. He thought that every kid should be so used to getting praised for simple things like finishing their dinner that they should be tired of it by now. Max seemed to be getting there.) He was always on high alert, though he was decently good at being low key about it, and, of course, there was the sweater that he wore 24/7. Ohio summers can get fucking hot, the high typically lingering in the 82-90 degrees fahrenheit range. This was often enough to make David sweat, and David wore shorts and short sleeved tops. 

Many times, children who are abused wear clothes unsuiting for the weather in order to cover up things like bruises. While this would explain it within the first few weeks, Max had been wearing the jacket endlessly for almost two months. This led David to believe that Max wasn’t covering up bruises, but something more permanent, such as burns or welts. Those didn’t typically go away, and it was a lot easier to cover up than to explain how he had gotten them. Yeah, he had done a lot of looking into this shit. All of this stuff being in mind, he never made a comment when he saw Max wandering around at night. He kept to himself, lingering behind him every now and again just to make sure that he didn’t get himself hurt, or get into too much trouble. He never did. In David’s opinion, at night Max turned from the rebellious, cynical, loveable asshole that he was, into a little victorian ghost kid who was unsure as to why the park(? He really didn’t know what kids in the victorian era did for fun.) had been turned into some weird camp. It was weird, but not too weird as to raise questions. David suspected that Max wasn’t always a little shithead, and before he’d started attending camp, he was much more like a little victorian kid than the asshole that he was now.

It wasn’t until a bit after parents day, when Max seemed worse than ever, emotional-wise that David finally took action. He had been out of his cabin, simply admiring trees, as he did, when he noticed Max. He had been rather worried for the kid ever since parents day. He had kept his concerns between he and Gwen, because he knew that if he vocalized his feelings towards Max, he’d be met with a stone cold wall, but they were pretty much the only thing plaguing his thoughts and dreams. He watched the boy wander over to his usual spot on the dock. He waited a few moments before following after him. There was no one around for Max to be embarrassed by, and he doubted that the kid was in the mood for sleeping, so they were going to talk. He wasn’t sure how exactly it was going to go, but he wanted to try more than he wanted to go back under his blankets and pretend to be as oblivious as everyone seemed to think he was. Thus leading us back to the aforementioned “You’ve been doing this a lot,”

Max hesitated before answering. He wasn’t sure if this was a trap or not. He could always deny it. Say that David had the wrong kid (even though there was really only one Indian kid with black curly hair, so he wasn’t sure that this would go). After a few moments of pondering, he decided that he would bite. “Yeah,” he agreed with a shrug, looking up at David cautiously. He didn’t look angry or anything. He just looked pretty bland, but with a hint of caring parental figure. It was weird, but he was quite interested. Where was this conversation headed?

David wasn’t surprised with the lack of response. “It could be dangerous, walking around out here by yourself.” He said. This was pretty pointless of him to say, because he knew that Max didn’t care, and he also knew that he himself wouldn’t let Max get hurt. It was more of a gentle build up to a tough conversation.

“You didn’t come out here to tell me it’s dangerous or else you would’ve done it before,” Max stated with a bored tone. He wished that he hadn’t downed his coffee in fear of being sent to bed, because he felt like it would have been an appropriate point of punctuation to take a sip. Instead, he held the cup and swished it around as if there were still liquid in it, when it was really just something to do with his hands.

“You’re right,” David agreed with a nod. He looked away from Max and out across the lake instead. Apparently a year or so of classes on how to have this exact talk didn’t really prepare him for shit. He exhaled with an awkward smile to no one really. “I wanna talk to you Max. About other things. Like, uhm,” alright Davey, now or never, “Home. Max, you’re a neato kid, but I can tell when something’s up. I don’t think most kids your age really just- wander around at 4 a.m. I think there’s a reason. Have you ever heard of insomnia? It’s usually what keeps people up for a lot of nights at a time and a big cause of it is-”

“Anxiety,” Max interrupted. “Mental health disorders. Yeah, David, I know what insomnia is, I’m not a moron,” He figured that he should have known that someone might ask questions as to why he wasn’t sleeping. Oh well. “You know what else is a cause of insomnia? Caffeine. And I drink a lot of coffee. That’s what keeps me up. Mystery solved, now you can go back to bed,” He looked down at his empty cup of coffee. He knew that he was technically right about caffeine being a cause of insomnia, but it typically took copious amounts, and he really only drank around two cups a day, one if David was feeling stern. Probably not enough to keep him up much past 2 a.m.

“You don’t drink nearly enough coffee to keep you up this late, kiddo,” David pointed out, turning his gaze back to the boy beside him. “I’m surprised that you know what insomnia is and that caffeine can cause it. Good for you, Max. I also think that you know two cups of coffee a day probably wouldn’t keep you up so late,” He could tell when someone was bullshitting, because as a kid, he was a professional bullshitter. He did a lot less of that now, since he generally felt as happy as he presented himself, but every now and then when it was necessary he could get back to his sneaky ways. “Do you know that summers in Ohio can pass a hundred degrees?”

Stupid David. Knowing stupid things and being stupid nice to him when he just wanted to get out of things. In many ways, David was the bane of his existence. This was one of the ways. When he would praise him and shit even when he was being a little shit. David sucked. “No, I didn’t. Don’t give a shit about the fucking weather, camp man,” Max stated in a grumble-y tone. He could only assume that this was going to somehow lead into a discussion about his sweater. He was an intuitive kid.

“It can. Yesterday it was almost 90 out. I was sweating my skin off,” David gave a half hearted chuckle. “Everyone else was too. Especially at the campfire. I can imagine that you were too,” David began cautiously. Max shrugged. Shrugging was a form of physical rejection, but physical rejection was better than verbal rejection. “Especially with that jacket. Why not take off your jacket if you were so hot?” He inquired, an eyebrow raised curiously.

“Didn’t want to,” Max answered, almost too quickly. He realized this, and cleared his throat, adjusting slightly and putting his empty cup back down. “I mean, I just like wearing my jacket. It’s comfortable. Didn’t realize that was like- a crime or something to wear a fucking jacket,” he was getting much more heated than really necessary about it, but no one asked questions, and when no one asked questions he didn’t have to worry about answering questions wrong. It was a very, very simple thing and stupid David was ruining everything as per usual. God, David was the fucking worse.

“It’s not a crime to wear your jacket, Max, I just don’t think that it’s the best idea to wear hoodies in really hot temperatures. You could get a heat stroke, ya know? Dangerous stuff. Even right now it’s pretty hot. Why don’t you take it off now? Better that than getting too hot, and I know I’m pretty well versed in camp stuff, but I don’t think that I’ve ever had to deal with a camper having a heat stroke. I don’t even know how I would deal with that, like I guess I could call Sleepy Peak General, but who knows how long it’d even take them to get here? Plus then I’d have to get Gwen, and all the campers would love to know wh-”

“Oh my fucking God, are you just going to keep fucking talking?” Max interrupted. Actually, yeah. That was David’s plan. Keep blabbering until Max got bored or annoyed with it and just agreed to take off the jacket. It really wasn’t hard to outsmart a kid. “I’ll take off the fucking jacket if you shut the fuck up about it, Christ,” Max groaned. The moment that he said this, he was doubtful. He didn’t actually want to take off his jacket. He did wear it for a reason. Father had a terrible smoking habit, and Max had a terrible habit of being around at just the right time when he felt like putting it out. Well, maybe it was more like the wrong time. Still, he could explain himself. He always did. “Don’t be weird. I’m clumsy,” he prefaced.

Almost self consciously, he pulled his hoodie off, revealing the plain yellow shirt underneath. There was also the case of his arms. They were- well, they were worse than if the clumsiest person in the world also happened to be an intense smoker. David, being his own dramatic self, almost wanted to gasp, but he bit his tongue to prevent the noise from coming out. He didn’t want Max to see him as being weird. He didn’t want to be weird, he wanted to be helpful. He just found it incredibly hard to be helpful when he was in front of a little boy who was fucking covered in not only burns from cigarettes, but also scars from God knows where, and welts from like, a belt or something. David let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding, tapping his hands on the dock. “Wowie, Max,” he awkwardly exhaled, staring shamelessly. Well, okay, there was shame to it, but he couldn’t not look. It felt wrong.

“You’re being weird,” Max stated, shifting slightly and folding the jacket up. He didn’t really know what to do with himself, honestly. He felt really weird. Like- he should be doing something, explaining himself, or something, but he didn’t really know what he should do exactly. Instead, he just focused on his jacket. He tugged at loose threads. “I’m, uhm,” he what? He had no fucking idea what he was doing. “Shut up,” He muttered.

“Max, I can’t just pretend like everything is normal. You know as well as I do that you aren’t just clumsy,” Alright, this was definitely a bit more strong than he had planned on coming on, but that was fine. He figured that the only way that anything could be done. Besides, David could be hard when he really wanted to be. “Look, I’m not going to force you to do anything, but I want you to at least admit that this isn’t from you. I wanna help you out, Max, but I can’t help ya if I don’t know what’s wrong,” David spoke with a soft, but stern tone.

In return, Max scoffed. “Look at you, trying to look like you know anything. Well, you don’t, David,” He sneered, pulling his jacket back on with slight difficulty. Once he did manage to pull it over his head, a slight blush was covering his cheeks, partially from embarrassment with the struggle, and partially from irritation with the situation. “You’re fucking ridiculous. You don’t know shit,” he could feel his heart rate quicken. He was pissed, but more than that, he was scared. He didn’t want to admit to anything that he had been conditioned to conceal. He was decently sure that he was safe-ish where he was, but one could never be too sure. He clenched his fists once, twice, then three times. This was fine. Everything was fine. He just needed to get rid of David, that was the problem, he was always the problem. “I don’t need any help from your irritating camp counselor ass.” He fumed, feeling his eyes tear up slightly. This was all going wrong. It was going bad and wrong and right down the drain. He stood up, figuring that if David wasn’t going to fuck off, he was going to go back to his tent. 

David promptly stood up. There was no way in hell he was just gonna let Max go. He had started the conversation and he would be damned if it ended before he had spoken all of his mind. “Max, we’re not finished here,” He gently put a hand on the boy's shoulder, and though he felt bad when the boy flinched slightly, he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. “I know you don’t like me, Max, and I know I don’t understand, but I want to. Honestly, I do,” He reassured, sensing that there was going to either be tears soon or an angry rage, which would have hitting and/or kicking. He wasn’t too scared of a little kid flailing about near him, because he wasn’t really all that scary. If he wanted to, he could really just pick Max up and like- hold him until he tired himself out or something.

There was also the possibility of waterworks, but David was decently sure that Max wasn’t the type to start crying. Of course, he could never be too sure, but he could be decently sure and Max was this whole ball of anger, so it was much more likely that he would throw a tantrum- and he was suddenly sobbing. Well, shit. This wasn’t what David had been prepared for, not at all. He knew how to comfort Nikki when she got hurt on an adventure, or Space Kid when he woke up covered in lake water, somehow, but not Max. Max wasn’t like the other kids. Well, there was one option that rarely let him down.

He crouched down to Max’s height, then slowly wrapped his arms around the sobbing boy. If there was one thing that is heartbreaking in the world, it’s seeing a child cry. Not like, oh they scraped their knee cry, or they lost their teddy bear cry. They don’t know what to do with themselves. Like they’ve been carrying a huge ass weight on their shoulders, that they shouldn’t even be having to carry because they’re a fucking kid cry. It hurt to watch, and it almost made him want to cry too. However, he knew he couldn’t. He held Max close, and much to his surprise, Max leaned in to it.

“It’s alright, Max, I’m right here for you. Just let it all out, bud,” David cooed softly, rubbing the boy’s back gently. After a few moments of this, Max letting everything out and David simply letting him, a rustle from the direction of the campers tents brought them both to attention. Max tugged himself away from David and began rubbing his eyes furiously as a figure appeared, revealing the rustling sound to be none other than Space Kid. Max relaxed, taking a few deep breaths and watching as the sleeping kid wandered closer and closer to the water. 

“He does this a lot.” Max stated. “He’s sleeping. He walks himself right into the water. I like- brainwashed his sleeping self into doing it. ‘S pretty funny,” he said, and although his voice was shaky and fragile, he sounded as though he were trying to pretend nothing had just happened. David had no time to scold Max for coercing Space Kids subconscious into walking into the lake, or even remind him that this was not going to be the end of the conversation, because there was a distinct splash, then surprised yelling. The second that David turned to see Space Kid thrashing, Max took the opportunity to bolt. David sighed as he hurried over to save the struggling camper. Max could be dealt with later, he knew that Gwen wouldn’t want to deal with all the paperwork that came with a dead camper again,

Okay, so apparently camp could get worse. Like a lot worse. Max was apparently very wrong in thinking that he had everything under control, because he definitely fucking didn’t. Everything was crashing and burning. Thoughts on how he was going to get out of the mess that he just created for himself plagued his mind as he crawled back into his cot and underneath his blanket. He held Mr, Honeynuts tightly, closing his eyes. This was bad. Like really fucking bad.


	5. 100 times a therapist was needed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which gwens degree in psych really doesn't cut it but she tries her hardest anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey gamers!! i literally finished this at 3am last night because im a procrastinator and im terrible, but it's out and for your consumption!!! please enjoy it but if you dont i get it lmao it's rough around the edges.
> 
> anyways, im not gonna sit back and pretend like what's going on in the world isn't going on, so here is a very important link that deals with the blm movement and i ask that y'all check it out and stay educated. thank you, enjoy your reading, and remember: acab and blm. 
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0KC83vYfVQ-2freQveH43PWxuab2uWDEGolzrNoIks/mobilebasic
> 
> -ads

“All over, Gwen! I’m telling you, it was terrible. I have half the mind to figure out where he lives by myself and give his parents a piece of my mind,” David said, his tone was as angry as his voice could typically get. The two counselors were preparing for the long day. Gwen pulling on her socks and shoes on the armchair that was in the middle room, and David fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror. He had been recounting the previous night's events, and while Gwen didn’t typically give a shit as to what happened at the camp, but like David, she had an odd connection to Max. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure why, but she just quite liked the little bastard. They were close in the sense that they could talk about how much they fucking despised Camp Campbell.

“Please, David, his parents could probably step on your skinny ass,” Gwen responded with an eye roll. “Anyways, David, staying on track. He told you to fuck off and all that jazz and then what?” She asked, tying her shoe, then standing up. She turned to the mirror beside the door. (This was something that she had insisted they buy since they both took around seven fucking years to get ready) and applied eyeliner as best she could with the little effort that she was willing to give. It turned out average, just as she liked it.

“Right, well, you’re probably right. Anyways, I told him that I knew I didn’t understand anything about what was going on, because I don’t, but I wanted to,” 

“That’s gay,” Gwen interrupted.

“Gwen, you can’t ask for a story, and then interrupt me when I’m trying to tell it. Just listen,” David responded in a patient tone. “Anyways, I told him that, and he just started crying. Like, really, sobbing. I didn’t even know what I should do!” He stepped out of the bathroom and leaned against the door frame. “I just hugged him. Like really tight. I just tried to comfort and hug him the best I could, but with Max I just- it was like a short circuit in the brain,” He sighed.

“Wait, deadass? Crying?? Max?? The little shit eating demon who is trying to make this our worst summer ever, Max?? The one who put me through hell and high water for a teddy bear, Max?” Gwen inquired, turning to face David, a skeptical tone to the way she was talking. She knew it was possible, of course, often times neglected children will put on a whole show for people, but they can’t always act that way (she hadn’t gone through hell for her psychology degree only to forget everything, even if it didn’t get her anything but a worthless summer camp job and a lame ass office job the rest of the time). “That’s fucking crazy, dude,” she exhaled.

“Yeah, it was weird as heck,” David agreed, nodding slightly. “But then Space Kid comes out of nowhere and sleep walks himself into the lake, and obviously I had to go and save him, and literally as soon as I walked away, Max was dashing back to his tent, and obviously I’m not surprised, but at the same time I’m just,” He exhaled heavily, fixing his bandana around his neck. “I can’t just not talk to him about this, you know? But I doubt he’s going to go wandering out at night again because now he knows that I’m gonna start talking to him about it,” David groaned. It was hard to be the normal, joyous person that he was when he knew that one of his campers was hurting. 

Gwen patted his back reassuringly. “Don’t worry, David, we’ll get it outta him, I’ll help you. I have a psychology degree, you know,” She said, grimacing at the fact. So many useless degrees, so much student debt. She could feel the existential dread building up in her stomach, but luckily the fact that it was finally going to be used for something other than pointing out everything that she personally did, was a pretty good distraction. She was more than happy to try and help a kiddo out, even if the kid was literally a spawn of Satan. “I have no fucking idea how we’re gonna do it though, that little bastard is the best at avoiding shit that he doesn’t want to do. Better than me, and I work at a summer camp that I hate with passion so that I can avoid office jobs that make me wanna blow my brain out,” She added on, putting her hand on the doorknob. 

“Yeah, he’s great at avoiding things,” David hummed in agreement, choosing this time to avoid the mention of how much Gwen hated the camp. His mind was elsewhere. Gwen took this as a bad sign, because it was more likely than not that she was going to be single handedly running the day's activities. This wasn’t always a big deal, but on days where they covered theatre camp, where Preston would surely get his ass beat up by Nurf and there would be countless splattered tomatoes to deal with, it would be a hassle. She decided she’d allow it nonetheless, since it was rare that she actually saw David as concerned as he seemed to be.

“Mhm. Now, let’s go wake these little bastards up and get this shit over with,” Gwen said, promptly opening the door and letting herself out, then stood outside the door as David followed. With not much more conversation to be had, they two counselors went about waking everyone up, David sticking his head into tents with his typical “Goooooooood morning, campers!”, while Gwen went about her typical, less friendly “Wake up, you little shits” approach. This always seemed to work, and today was no different. Yes, there were grumbles and groans, but within twenty minutes, everyone was up and at ‘em. Except for Nerris, who was apparently missing whatever random glue shit that she stuck those weird elf ears on with.

Five minutes, one ass beating to Harrison (courtesy of who other than Nurf?), and intense elf ear appliances struggling later, everyone was all set for a good day at theatre camp. Okay, well, maybe not everyone was ready for theatre camp, and it was probably not going to be a very good day, but a day at theatre camp was going to happen one way or another, Gwen was fucking sure of it.

As previously suspected, the day was a long, pretty much one person run day. Though, to be fair, Preston picked up David’s slack, because when it came to theatre, that kid did not fuck around. Honestly, if the idea of being in theatre wasn’t bullying worthy, he could probably be a popular girl with a group of friends that followed her every command, like Regina George, or Heather Chandler. Gwen would have admired it if she hadn’t had her hands full trying to keep Space Kid from trying to climb on to the rafters to achieve space flight (seriously did that little fucker think he was a bird or something?) and keeping Nikki from throwing the whole camps supply of tomatoes at Preston during the play because Ered had said that theatre was totally uncool. Honestly, she wished that Nikki would get over this little puppy crush that she had on Ered, because the older girl having her at her beck and call was an issue that she had no idea how to deal with.

She silently thanked whatever God there was (or wasn’t) for Preston’s high pitched, yet oddly commanding voice. The whole day, she could see David eyeing an oddly well behaved Max as he off handedly kept Neil from sneaking back to his tent, or separated the magic kids before Nerris could throw dice in Harrison’s eyes. He didn’t really put as much heart into insisting that they were both equally as important magic kids as he usually did, though to be fair was Nerris even a magic kid or was she more of like- a dweeb? Gwen had never been too sure. In Gwen’s opinion, Harrison was the real magic kid, but she wasn’t sure anyone was ready for that conversation.

As the day drew to a close and the kids settled around the fire, doing whatever bored kids do, Gwen took the opportunity to talk to David. She put a bag of marshmallows down and let the kids at them so that they would focus on that rather than the conversation. The nosy little bastards were still kids, so it really didn’t take much to distract them.

“So did you learn anything from staring at Max all day like some sort of predator or did you just leave me to my own devices to no avail?” She inquired, sitting down on a log and patting the seat beside her to gesture for David to do the same. He did, right after separating Nurf from Preston and giving them their own marshmallows. 

“Well, I did get a surprising amount of cold glares, and he kicked me in the shins not once, not three times, but two times, plus I saw his middle finger today more than I think I’ve ever seen any middle finger ever, but nothing useful,” David responded, giving a defeated sigh and taking a bite of a marshmallow. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Gwen, I can’t go the rest of the summer with Max hating me-”

“Max already hated you, to be fair,” Gwen interfered, getting a marshmallow for herself and promptly dropping it to the floor. While one might simply grab another marshmallow and toss the dropped one into the fire for fuel or something, the camp was on a budget and there weren’t a lot left, so she simply picked it up and started brushing the dirt and small pieces of sticks from the treat. 

“He doesn’t hate me anymore, Gwen, we really made a connection. Well, we had, but then last night happened,” He groaned, tossing what was left of the stupid thing into the fire. He couldn’t enjoy the disgusting clump of sugar knowing that the rest of summer was probably going to be shitty, not only for him, but for Max too. 

“Fair enough,” Gwen agreed. Her efforts to clean her marshmallow were proving to be fruitless, so she stuck it on a stick and stuck it into the fire, figuring she’d just burn the outer shell and slip all the burnt part right off, basically creating a new marshmallow. Oh the things that you learn in years of being a camp counselor. “Well, I could try talking to him if you want,” Gwen proposed, watching her marshmallow slowly but surely catch fire.

David gave a laugh at this, but quickly fell quiet upon realizing that this wasn’t a joke. “You? Talk to him? Gwen, he hates you just as much as he hates me, what exactly would that accomplish?” He wasn’t usually one to laugh at other people’s suggestions, no matter how stupid they were, but he really didn’t see Gwen being any better at talking to Max than she was. She was great and all, she really was, but she wasn’t really the best when it came to talking to kids. She saw them as, a direct quote, “little bastards”, and never failed to let them know that she thought of them like that.

“Well, David,” She began, pausing to pull her marshmallow out from the fire and extinguish it. “I do have a psychology degree, you know,” She grimaced. So much debt. So little pay from her shitty jobs to pay it back. “Plus I’m not the one who saw him crying earlier. I’m actually willing to bet that he finds it easier to talk to me. I know how to talk to kids, I just usually don’t because they’re little shit heads,” She put the blob of sugar into her mouth with an odd sort of dignity. 

It took a moment of contemplation, but David finally agreed, giving a slight nod. “Yeah, okay. I’ll send the rest of the campers to bed, you talk with Max-- HEY, HARRISON, STOP-- BRING NERRIS’ EAR BACK” He jumped out of his seat, abruptly ending the conversation. 

Gwen was decently sure that those elf ears were a lost cause, because the whole reason that magic kid number one had come to their magic camp was because he couldn’t bring shit back from whatever void that he vanished them to. Rabbits, scarves, his brother, and now glue on elf ears. The list would probably never cease to expand. She almost felt bad for the kid, since he actually seemed to want to know how to bring shit back, but whenever she did feel bad, she remembered she actually didn’t give a shit about this camp and his parents shouldn’t have signed him up for this sham of a camp.

“Alright, ya little shits,” Gwen stood up and tossed her stick into the fire. Unlike David, she had a rather authoritative voice. Enough to get everyone to drop whatever they were doing and look at her. Of course, this meant Nurf dropped Space Kid mid ass beating, and he fell to the ground, but he had a fishbowl on his head and a thick skull, so he’d probably be fine. “Tents. Now. It’s bedtime,” She crossed her arms. There was a collective sigh and groans amongst the campers, but no arguing. Of course, Nerris did smack the back of Harrison’s head before darting to her tent, and Nurf raised a threatening fist towards SK, indicating that this wasn’t the end of this ass beating, but they all seemed to head towards their sleeping quarters with some scattered talking between them. “Max, you and me are gonna have a little talk first,” She declared, grabbing the abnormally short boy by the hood of his jacket. There were a few ‘ooooo, max is in trouble’s, but no one really cared.

“If you hear screaming, call the police, she’s probably killing me, or something,” Max told Neil as the tall boy walked back to their shared living quarters. Neil nodded, honestly not even suspecting Max of over reacting. Yeah, it seemed a bit soon and he was pretty young to be murdered, but he was also a pretty big asshole, so it made sense. David laughed his irritatingly chipper laugh as he shook his head and shooed the kids to their tents. He typically made sure that everyone was in their tents, put out the fire, then made sure that everyone was settled before retiring to the counselors cabins, and planned on doing the same tonight.

While Gwen usually assisted (a term which here means that she followed him around while spouting gossip from tabloids and reality television shows as David did their chores, listening with interest), she figured it’d be best to start her conversation with Max while she already had them. She looked at David, nodded slightly, then started towards the cabin with the hood still in hand to prevent Max from running off. She was not in the mood to chase after some asshole kid in the dark.

“You’re so dramatic, I’m not gonna kill you, and you know it damn well,” Gwen rolled her eyes as she opened the door to the cabin, holding it open for Max with one hand and flipping the light switch that was right next to the door with the other. She considered the possibility that Max would try and run off and braced herself to grab him again, but he seemed to realize that he most likely wasn’t going to get out of this bullshit, so he entered the cabin obediently. He waited for Gwen to close the door behind herself before looking up and crossing his arms.

“Obviously I know that you’re not going to kill me. You’re going to bore me with some bullshit about last night, right?” Man, for a ten year old, Max was really fucking smart. “I know David told you everything, because he’s a moron, and now you’re gonna try to figure everything out, right? Well, you’re not like a psychologist or anything so I don-” 

“I have a degree in psych, actually,” Gwen interrupted. Sometimes it felt nice to prove people wrong. Even if said people were just ten year olds who had no way of knowing that you had yet another useless degree. And even if those ten year olds were prone to making fun of you for having useless degrees.

“Oooooooh, Gwen, that is tragic,” Max responded snarkily, sticking his arms into his pockets and looking around the cabin. It was nothing that he hadn’t seen before. Despite the rules and regulations stating that the counselors cabin was strictly prohibited to campers, Max had snuck in there time and time again, whether it be to look for something, or just to enjoy the slightly less hot indoors. He’d seen pretty much everything that there was to see.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m going to die before I pay off all of my debts. You’ve told me a few times now. Come on,” Gwen spoke with a bored voice. She started towards her bedroom, which was down a very short hallway from the main room. She reached to the top of the door frame (it was the only place she could think of where Max wouldn’t be able to get it, the short asshole) and grabbed a key. She knew that Max snuck into their cabin quite often, and she would be damned if that little shit head went in there without her consent. However, she figured that today with the talk that they were about to have, she could let him in.

Max would have loved to resist, but this was the one room in the whole cabin that he hadn’t gotten to see, and he was absolutely not about to pass up this opportunity. He followed after him, squinting at the room skeptically. He was absolutely not surprised with what he saw. The room was covered with Spider-Guy posters, Midnight; Breaking Dawn posters, and random pages of magazines with both hot guys and hot girls stuck up everywhere. It screamed Gwen.

“You know what, I want to say that I’m disappointed with this room, but I should have assumed it’d look like this. If anything, I’m disappointed in myself for not suspecting it would look exactly like this,” Max sat himself down on Gwen’s bed, making himself comfortable. He sat criss crossed, not caring at the dirt on his shoes. Gwen didn’t really either, sitting herself on the bed as well. 

“You really should be, like you’ve met me before. I’m literally just this room personified,” she agreed, to which Max nodded in agreement. This was going well, so far. They were relaxing. Bonding-ish. “Max, I’m not gonna bullshit you. David is worried. Even I’m concerned. We should talk about whatever happened last night,” She didn’t share David’s sickeningly sweet voice. She knew that shit didn’t work with Max. He didn’t really seem to like being talked to like a kid, despite literally being a child.

“Nothing happened last night,” he ventured, knowing damn well that this wasn’t going to work with Gwen, of all people. It was worth a shot though. 

“Max, I will not hesitate to fuck that stupid bear of yours up. You’re going to talk to me, and you might not like it, but God damn it, you’re gonna do it,” Gwen crossed her arm. Her voice wasn’t as aggressive as it could be. She honestly didn’t plan on wrecking the bear at all, but it was the only thing that she knew he had an emotional connection to, so it was her best shot.

With Mr. Honeynuts on the line (he was pretty sure that Gwen wouldn’t actually hurt Mr. Honeynuts, but she was one sneaky bitch, so who could be sure?) Max felt slightly more compelled to speak. He shifted slightly, his typical, cold demeanor shifting slightly to a much more appropriate demeanor for a kid. A lot more soft, unsure, and awkward.

“It wasn’t anything. Just David being really fucking nosy. I didn’t even cry,” he spoke rapidly, hoping that the faster he spoke (even if it was bullshit) the faster he’d be able to get set free. He was wrong. If anything, Gwen’s body language showed that she was more likely to keep him there after his words,

“I never said that you did cry. Why’d you cry?”

“I mean obviously you didn’t say that I cried but I know that David said I did,”  
“Well, why would David say that you cried if you hadn’t cried?” 

“Well, because he’s David and he-”

“David doesn’t lie. I’ve known him for seven years at least and he’s never lied to me. Why would this be an exception?” This was asked a bit more aggressively. She was getting exactly what she wanted, and Max was none the wiser.

“Well, yeah, he doesn’t but-”

“Well then why, Max?”

“Okay, Jesus fucking Christ, stop grilling me, I was fucking crying, okay? Jesus fuck!” Max finally snapped, seeing as there was no clear way out of this little mess that he’d gotten himself into. Fucking hell, he’d made fun of her for it, but maybe Gwen deserved the degree that she spent two years of her life getting. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, picking at the skin around his fingernails. “Can I just go back to my tent now?” He asked.

“Well, I appreciate the cooperation, but not quite yet, kiddo,” she never used kiddo whilst referring to the kids, especially not Max of all people, but it seemed appropriate for the time. “I know that you were crying, but now I’d like to find out why,” she pried.

“Because I’m ten years old, and all that ten year olds do is whine, cry, and bitch about their lives?” Max offered, again dubious that Gwen would actually take his bullshit, and again right in thinking so. 

“Max, you’re smart enough to know that we’re gonna sit here until you talk, right?” Gwen inquired, to which Max nodded in response. ”Alright, good. We could end this a lot faster and make this night a lot less awkward for the both of us if you start now.” She prompted, staring at the kid for any signs of emotion. For a ten year old, he had one hell of a poker face. Like, yeah, the way that his body was slightly slumped and pulled away from Gwen showed that he was uncomfortable and would rather be anywhere else, but his face was as blank as a piece of printer paper. If Gwen were to ever play actual poker with him, she would be sure to lose.

“I was pissed off,” He stated coldly. “David’s a moron. He thinks he knows what he’s doing, but he doesn’t. Trying to go all ‘ooh, Max, I care about you, I want to know what’s wrong Max’ “ he put on a shrill mockery voice for his David impression, and though it didn’t really sound like him, Gwen could see where he was coming from. “He doesn’t give a shit. No one gives a shit. My teachers used to say the exact same thing and you know where that got me? No where. All talk and shit, but when it comes around to actually fucking doing anything they’re just blind and deaf to the situation. It’s stupif. They’re stupid. David’s stupid,” Max was beginning to rant on, and he could feel his eyes welling up in tears and his cheeks flushing slightly with embarrassment, but he paid them no mind. He was too heated now to be worrying.  
It felt like everything was all crushing in on him. The events of the previous night, Gwen drilling him now, and everything from his teachers pretending to give a shit, to his parents not even bothering to pretend. It was overwhelming to say the least, and despite feeling like he couldn’t breathe, he found himself speaking more. “And you’re stupid too! You don’t have a fucking cle what you’re doing, pyschology degree my ass. All you did was pressure me into admitting something that you already knew, so it was fucking stupid and you didn’t even learn anything new, so it was a hell of a waste of time too, you fucking dumbass,” he could feel cheeks slowly begin to slip from his eyes down his cheeks, and damn did it feel good to be spouting nonsense as they finally did. He looked down and wondered when the fuck he’d stood up and where exactly he planned on going. “I hate it, I hate you, and I hate this stupid fucking camp!” Were his final words. He stood there, shaking on the not steady mattress and crying like he hadn’t in ages.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Gwen taking in this information and allowing Max to compose himself, and Max watching the small amount of dignity that he’d had left shrink into nothing. Now he just felt like an idiot. He reluctantly sat back down on the bed, taking shuddering breaths and wiping his still flowing tears with the now damp sleeves of his jacket. After a few moments, when Max showed no signs of stopping crying, Gwen figured it would be in their best interest to press forward.

“Wow, Max, that’s a lot of thoughts in that little head of yours,” Gwen began, her voice unlike it’d ever been around Max. He would’ve taken time to acknowledge just how weird it was, had he not been trying to stop his ever flowing tears. “Can you tell me more? What didn’t your teachers care about? Why do you think they didn’t care?” 

“I don’t think they didn’t care, I know they didn’t care,” Max shot back, almost instantly. Seeming to understand that he simply wasn’t done crying yet, and that his face was going to just do whatever it wanted despite what his brain was telling it, he wrapped his arms around himself in a tight hug. “They used to ask about why I came to school all beat up. They pretended like they gave a shit. When I told them, they got all awkward and then boom. Never asked about it again. Never said anything about it to anyone, not even the principal. They didn’t give a shit. No adults do. They just exist to make kid’s lives a living hell. That’s why I do it too,” he seemed done with trying to hold any information back at this point. Gwen had won this battle.

“Yeah, public school’s are like that, but not all grownups are like that, you know. Some of them actually try,” she countered. Max scoffed, but made no other attempt to further the conversation. “Max, why did you go to school all beat up? And why are there all those burns on your arms?” The elephant in the room was finally being acknowledged, and though Max shifted uncomfortably and sniffled, he seemed willing to talk.

“Dad,” was his simple, almost pained sounding response. “Whenever I mess anything up, or when he’s real angry at something and I’m around,” he shifted again, his eyes looking anywhere but at Gwen. “It’s usually my fault though. I always fuck shit up. I should really just behave better,” Gwen was going to interfere here, tell him that of course it wasn’t his fault, but Max just kept on talking. “You know, at home I’m nothing like I am here. I’ve only sworn in front of them once, and when I did, my dad smacked me and said that if I ever said it in front of them again that he’d wash my mouth out with soap.” He scrunched his nose at the thought. He’d done his research since then, and learned that washing your mouth with soap could actually leave you with real health problems, especially if you accidentally swallowed it. “He’s real mean,” he finished. After a slight pause to see if he was going to continue and hearing nothing, Gwen finally spoke up.

“What about your mom? Is she mean too, Max?” His tears did seem to be slowing down slightly, which Gwen saw as a positive. He was calming down some, and while she didn’t mind a frantic and angry child, it was much easier to deal with a relaxed one.

“No, not really. She just doesn’t pay attention. She used to, but she just kinda, doesn’t,” he shrugged, sniffling. It didn’t really do anything, because his face was already covered in both tears and snot, but it would be at least more convenient to be able to breathe through his nose than through his mouth. 

“That’s shitty, kid,” Gwen didn’t try to relate, or promise that things would be better, since it simply wasn’t something that she could guarantee, and she didn’t want to promise something she couldn’t guarantee. She figured that if she did promise something and it didn’t go through, it’d make Max’s trust issues even worse.

“Yeah, it’s shitty. Life is shitty,” Max agreed. His tears were slowing to a stop now, and he was sort of slumped forward. His eyes were drooping slightly. Gwen took it as all of this crying and talking about shit had actually gotten to the poor kid. She didn’t want to send him to his tent because he’d have to explain why he was crying to Neil, and he didn’t seem up to dealing with all that shit. She’d allow him to sleep in her bed, had she not been the type to really need her beauty sleep. She finally resorted to what seemed to be the best method. 

“Let’s go watch some trash t.v.,” she offered, standing from her bed and stretching her legs. It would have felt appropriate to pick Max up and simply carry him to the middle room, but despite his tired state, she didn’t want to force that on him. He stood from his slumped sitting position, rubbed his eyes, then led the way to the television room. He surveyed his two options- an actual couch, and a small armchair- before deciding on the latter option, curling up almost instantly.

“You have a shitty taste in shows, at least put on something interesting,” Max stated, checking his seat for the remote before Gwen found it on the couch. Damn, he knew he should’ve chosen the couch, though he doubted that Gwen would really let him be in control of what they watched anyways.

“Don’t be so picky, if I want to watch a movie about vampires and werewolves-”

“Oh my fucking God, Gwen, if you put on a fucking movie with vampires and werewolves, I swear to fucking God-”

“It was but a joke, you little shit. I’ll put on something entertaining for the whole family,” Gwen cut him off before promptly putting on a show that seemed to get the best reception from where the fucking nightmare of a camp was located, ‘Prison Baby Wars’. It did prove to be entertaining for the whole family, because even in his drowsy state, Max would give out the occasional ‘oh shiiiiit’ or ‘stab her, bitch’, all the way up until he fell asleep about ten minutes later.

Like clockwork, or an author frantically writing something in because they procrastinated until the literal last second, the familiar sound of a door opening rang in Gwen’s ears only a few moments after Max’s eye’s closed for the last time that night. Oh, shit. She’d almost forgotten she even had a co-counselor who’d been gone for the last half hour, give or take. The nightly routine usually only took around fifteen minutes, so she assumed that David had given her a little extra time to do her thing.

Gwen sat up from her uncomfortable position, raising a finger to her mouth to silence David before he could say anything (he could be really fucking loud, and she didn’t feel like coaxing Max back to sleep) before gesturing down the hall and heading towards David’s room. Her room was strictly off limits to not only the campers (well, there could be exceptions sometimes) but also to David. Once they were both in the room, Gwen closed the door and exhaled slowly.

“Fucking Christ, David. I didn’t even know that Max could talk so much all at once,” she sat herself on the bed, to which David didn’t protest, just sat beside her. “I know I always call him a little shit, and Satan and all, but I actually feel bad for him, like he is going through it, dude,”

“I told you, Gwen! It seemed serious last night!” David chirped almost instantly in response, a worried expression covering his face. “Tell me what happened. What did he say?” Normally, he’d actually care about confidentiality, but right now he was more worried about making sure that Max was in a safe position (or that they could get him into a safe position) than that.

While Gwen would usually call him out in a joking way about the lack of care about the secret keeping, she didn’t find it appropriate. Instead, she found herself recounting the details of the past half hour, while David listened silently. Rather than really sleeping for the rest of the night, the two counselors discussed the situation and what the hell they were going to do about it. Sure, they were minimum wage camp counselors, working off the messy thought process of a ten year old, but they were going to figure out what to do or die trying.


	6. a//n

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry y'all

hey gang! so, this week my body decided that it literally hates me more than usual and i was having really bad pains pretty much everywhere for the whole week,, so really haven't written all that much of this chapter. i'm pretty disappointed because i've managed to keep this going for i think five weeks and now i'm like hahaha amazing great, so yeahhhh, i'm really sorry, ^^'' im going to try and get one up this week and if i dont end up finishing it, i'll post two chapters next sunday so yeah,, really sorry guys, have a good day//night. love you!!


	7. ha ha okay get this

y'all im so sorry lmao my laptop, the piece of shit that i keep and do all of my writing on is totally and utterly out of commission right now, and as of right this second, i cant quite get a new one. i plan on getting one within the next couple weeks though, so yeah. sorry gamers! i'll be updating as soon as possible!!! in the mean time, keep yourselves safe, love you, and also, sign petitions and donate to blm things bc that shit is important, okay, much love!!


	8. is this a cut scene?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HEY Y'ALL GUESS WHO JUST GOT A NEW LAPTOP AND I'M SO HAPPY YOU GUYS ARE GETTING A NEW CHAPTER TODAY AND ON SUNDAY BITCHES IT"S SO THRILLING TO NOT HAVE A HUGE CRACK ACROSS THE SCREENNNNNNN AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ANYWAYS remember that the situation relating to black lives is still ongoing!! do your part, bitches! i'm gonna leave this link again because it's a really informative link and it just has a bunch of information. so yeah, look at the link! make donations! sign petitions! black lives matter, babey. 
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0KC83vYfVQ-2freQveH43PWxuab2uWDEGolzrNolks/mobilebasic

In which a lot of shit that would usually go on behind the scenes go on in front of the scenes and so it kinda feels like a cut scene but it's actually really not.

The next few days were stressful for everyone. Well, everyone besides the campers who had no idea what was going on, as well as the QM, so really the overwhelming majority. The minority, being Max, Gwen, and David, however, were more than stressed. Max because he was pretty sure that he’d gotten his family in trouble, thus causing him to pretty much self isolate, and Gwen and David because they had no fucking idea what they were supposed to do, and Max was isolating himself from everyone.

Well, almost everyone. A ten year old could really go only so long without talking to his best friends and tent buddy. He’d managed for exactly one and a quarter days before Nikki snuck out of the days activities with a reluctant Neil in tow (it was extreme sports camp day, which was extremely dangerous, so really, the less campers the better). Nikki had instantly thrown herself onto Max, perhaps an attempt at a hug, and demanded they they were told what the fuck was going on, because she may be oblivious a lot of the time, but even she could tell something was going on. Even Neil agreed.

“Look, man, we don’t usually question your brooding personality- it’s quite charming- but we want to be in the know. Seriously,” Neil sat himself on his bed, and after much coercion, Nikki joined him rather than being literally on top of Max. 

“We really care about you, Max!” Nikki agreed, her legs crossing and her fingers tapping some sort of rhythm on her leg. Max looked skeptically between his two friends. He knew that they cared about him- he had trust issues with everyone, but it was a lot easier to trust someone his own age- but he just was unsure. What if he weirded them out and they didn’t want to be friends anymore? What if they went and told his personal business to the other campers and they thought he was weird too?? What if he was socially outcast within the one place that he found safe??? He was stressing about this shit for much too long, and his friends were looking ready to continue to press him.

“Fine, I’ll talk under two conditions. First, we go out of this shit hole tent and into the woods or something. Second, you guys don’t tell a fucking soul, or I’ll sell the most valuable thing in your shitty lives on the dark web,” Max threatened, slowly pulling on some fresh socks and his old, ratty tennis shoes. 

“You can’t sell the most valuable thing in my shitty life, I left my microscope at home,” Neil reasoned. Of course, he had no real intentions of saying anything to anyone, but he still was the type to call people out on their bullshit.

“2837,” was Max’s simple reply as he tied up his laces. A few moments of thinking ensued before a startled gasp came from Neil.

“Dude, that’s the last numbers of my social security num-” Neil began, only to be abruptly cut off by Max leaving the tent, followed by a bouncing Nikki who was calling out “DO ME NEXT!!” okay, he had already known that Max was a force to be reckoned with, but how the fuck had He come across such information? Actually, upon thinking more into it, Neil decided that he really didn’t want to know. That was going to be an issue for another time. 

“Nikki, I am not taking you into the woods to murder you, I’m taking you into the woods because it’s the most private place in this fucking nightmare of a camp. There’s kids running around the activity field, and God knows what the QuarterMaster is doing elsewhere,” very few things scared Max, and QuarterMaster was one of them. So were old people having weird, kinky sex in a dungeon. Dark shit. It had only been about two minutes before Nikki’s attention had shifted from her wanting Max to tell her her own social security number (he doubted she actually knew it, so he spouted off nine random numbers and she seemed satisfied) to believing firmly that Max was leading she and Neil to their inevitable, yet untimely deaths. 

“Okay, but I’m just saying, if you were gonna kill someone, you’d probably do it in the woods, right?” Nikki inquired, choosing to completely ignore his previous statement.

“No, Nikki I would probably do it on Halloween in some creepy, old house and just lure kids in and give them some poisoned candy. Or become a cop, then I’d get away with it anyways,” Max responded, giving the author an opportunity to push her personal political opinions in a platform that she has, thus pushing the point that all cops are, in fact, bastards.

“Wow, Max, that’s pretty dark,” Neil spoke up, pushing a tree branch out of his face and allowing it to swing back once he had passed it. Unlike his short ass friends, his long and lanky legs made it a bit more inconvenient for him to walk through the woods, low hanging trees and unnaturally high bushes often getting in his way. 

“Well, she asked and it seems efficient. Read an article about some guy who tried that once, but he fucked everything up. I could probably do it right if I really tried,” Max shrugged, wondering why the hell he’d actually corrected Nikki in how he’d kill someone. “Here’s good,” he stopped rather abruptly in a slight clearing that had conveniently placed tree parts that seemed to make decent seats. Max sat himself on a tree stump and watched as his friends sat on a log. 

“Well, we’re listening. Whenever you’re ready, dude,” Neil prompted, to which NIikki nodded quickly in agreement. It was weird to have all of their attention on him. Nikki wasn’t even getting distracted by random bugs or random birds flapping about, she was looking at him with actual, genuine concern in his eyes. Man, he talked mad shit about his best friends, but they were pretty fucking awesome, if he were being honest. They weren’t pressuring him, and they weren’t making him feel weird. They were being really nice people. Why couldn’t everyone be like them?

He exhaled, feeling his hands begin to fiddle with some loose strings on the sleeve of his hoodie. “It’s no big deal,” he began awkwardly, to which both of his friends spoke up.  
“You’ve been acting weird the past, like, two days. Even if you don’t think it’s a big deal, we do,” Neil reasoned.

“Yeah, don’t act all stupid, of course it’s a big deal,” Nikki chimed in. It wasn’t the best way to go about shit, but her heart was in the right place, and though Neil and Max gave her a slightly curious glance they knew that she was doing her best, so they let her do her.

“God, you guys are so fucking cheesey,” Max rolled his eyes, though this was really trying his best to stall for as long as possible without seeming conspicuous. A look from Neil proved that he was failing in doing so. “Alright, well, I guess it’s pretty much all David’s fault,” he tugged on the sleeve of his hoodie. “I go on walks sometimes in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, so I was doing that the other night, and David comes out of jackshit nowhere and talks about how I do it a lot, and apparently he’s been watching me,” he sounded irritated. He would expect Neil to point out that he could’ve been watching Max to make sure that he was staying out of harm's way and trouble in general, but he didn’t. He stayed quiet, waiting for his friend to continue. Max was unsure if he would’ve preferred that he spoke up or not, but he continued speaking nonetheless.

So, he spoke. He explained everything, feeling a bit more comfortable telling his friends everything than he was telling the adults, but it still felt a bit off. Despite how weird this shit felt, his friends didn’t seem all that phased. Well, yeah, they responded appropriately to what they were being told, but they didn’t seem uncomfortable (well, okay, sort of, but one would probably be slightly uncomfortable at the prospect of their best friend getting abused) and they made no move to tell him to stop. This felt a lot more comfortable than when he was talking to Gwen. They weren’t forcing him to talk, and they weren’t giving him weird, therapist-esque looks, they were just being kids. Kids that wanted to help out their best friend.

Once he finished talking, he fiddled with his fingers, looking up at his friends as he waited for a response. “So, yeah, that’s what we’re working with,” Max finished, his attention moving from Neil and Nikki to the tree stump that he was sitting on. There was an ant crawling across it that he noticed, and flicked it off. He hated bugs.

“God damn, Max, you’ve been holding that shit in all summer? Why didn’t you say anything to us?” Neil inquired, and despite not being much of a touchy feely person, he almost wanted to pull Max into a tight hug. Not enough to actually do it though, mostly because he had a feeling that Max would hit him or something.

“I don’t know,” Max responded with a lame shrug. “I guess I didn’t want shit to be weird? Plus, I didn’t think you guys would care,” though he said this as blandly as he could, his face conveyed discomfort with the concept. It was true, he didn’ think anyone would care, because no one ever cared. Yeah, they’d give kind smiles and shit, but kind smiles don’t do anything. Most kids his age are more concerned about trying relationships, or playing Warrior Cats at recess, there was very little space in between the two.

“Jesus, Max, for someone as smart as you are, you’re pretty stupid,” Neil scolded, though it was in a light hearted tone. “We’re your best friends. I know we fuck around a lot, but of course we care for you,” he seemed almost offended that Max wouldn’t think that they cared for him.

“Yeah, Max! Stuff won’t be weird between us! Remember that one time when we ended up in the Flower Scouts camp on that airplan-" Nikki began, only to be cut off by a frantic Neil.

"Yeah, alright, no, we get it, Nikki. We don't talk about that day. That day was- well-" Neil trailed off and the three of them gave a collective shiver. Oh the things that happen in cutscenes. 

Max sighed a sigh of relief, and though he still wore his usual scowl, it was a bit more relaxed than it had been the last day or so. Honestly, Neil would say it was the least scowl-ish scowl that he had ever seen. 

"Thanks, guys," Max mumbled, his cheeks feeling unnaturally warm. Was it hot, or was it just his hoodie?? Or the fact that he rarely got to share his emotions and shit in a way that he felt comfortable with people that he greatly cared for and now that he got to express them and got positive reaction differed greatly than what he was used to and it was overwhelming for him which made him both uncomfortable yet oddly happy? Nah, it was probably the hoodie. 

Neil could tell that an awkward silence was about to ensue. He also knew that this would probably lead Max to thinking he'd been the one to cause it, when it was really just how shit went. No one's fault. He took this opportunity to speak up. "Well. You guys wanna walk or something?" He proposed.

Unsurprisingly, Nikki leapt up at the offer, nodding aggressively. "Absolutely!! Leeeeeettttt's go!" She didn't even wait for Max to give an answer before bounding off into the trees, leaving dust behind her. 

"You wanna walk too or should we just let her do her own thing and find like- a bear or something? We can go back to the tent if you want," Neil watched as Max stood up, brushing any potential dirt or tree bits off of himself. Max seemed to take both options into consideration before shrugging. 

"Let's walk. It feels like it's been forever. Maybe we'll find something cool," it honestly didn't take much for a ten year old to find something that they considered cool. They'd found beer bottles before (Nikki had tried to break one against a tree like they did in movies, but it had actually just shattered everywhere and left them all with bits of glass in their skin). They'd also found cigarettes, which Max was quick to throw in the river. Neither Nikki nor Neil had questioned it or really cared.

The two followed after Nikki, though at a considerably slower pace than their teal haired friend. They were too young to be as tired as they were. 

Walking in the forest was always quite nice. The sun trickling between tree branches. Moss that was an almost calming green colour (does that even make sense?) Lizards and mice skittering about, never hesitating to make Neil squeal like a little girl (and Max step back). 

The branches creaking in the wind would sound ominous in dark hours, but during the day, it seemed nice. You could try to figure out which tree branch was making what noise. There was always a crinkling of leaves from behind them, and they'd become pretty damn sure that it was the platypus following behind them and making sure they were okay, but it was always just out of sight, so they could be one hundred percent sure. 

The smell of dirt was very prominent, but it wasn't the only scent. You could slightly smell the wildly coloured blooming flowers that peeked out wherever they could. In between roots, beneath and inside of fallen logs. They actually smelled quite nice, and Max thought it was unfortunate that the smell of dirt was more powerful. There was a lot more dirt than there was flowers. He enjoyed walking in the woods and noticing these sorts of things. There was always something new that he noticed. (it was a sad day when he'd discovered that apparently wild rats and mice lived in the woods) whether it be a new tree sprouting up, or a hole that randomly appeared in the ground. It never ceased to amaze him. It also never ceased to amaze him how Nikki managed to get so high in trees in matters of seconds.

"Nikki, get down from that branch before you fall and break your arm or something," Max warned, squinting and holding a hand up to his eyes to block the sun from getting in them as he looked up. He had no idea how she managed to do this shit. Literally, she'd disappeared maybe thirty seconds ago and somehow managed to get at least twenty feet up. He was constantly scared that she was going to fall out of a tree like a damn acorn or something. She never had, but there was a first for everything. 

"No way!! I found a bird nest up here!! There's three eggs! Maybe if I sit really still and wait until they hatch, I can pretend to hatch too and she'll adopt me as one of her own! Not quite as interesting as a wolf pack, but I'll take what I can get," there was rustling, then silence, leaving Max and Neil to assume that she was, in fact, pretending to be an egg. 

"Nikki, you've had dumb ideas, but I think that pretending to be an egg could be," Max began, then hesitated. "Actually, nevermind, this is pretty low on the charts. Continue," he figured that she honestly couldn't be doing too much harm if she was being still. Plus, there was a log that he and Neil could sit on until the mama bird came back and attacked Nikki for seeming like she was trying to steal the eggs (he wasn't concerned about this, because Nikki had fought off a literal fucking bear before, a pissed off bird had nothing on the crazy bastard) so there was pretty much no downside to this. He sat on the log, Neil sitting beside him swiftly.

"How quick do you think she's gonna send that mom bird off once it gets back?" Neil asked, glancing up the tree and squinting in an attempt to see anything besides leaves and branches. It was a failed attempt.

"I'd put ten bucks on a minute tops," Max responded, turning his attention to the wildlife around them.

"Alright, I'll bite. I say it takes at least two minutes. Mother birds are actually surprisingly aggressive when-" Neil wagered, offering his hand to shake, (he always had to do this now, because Max had a habit of claiming that they hadn't shook on it when he lost) only to be cut off.

"Yeah, alright don't care. Deal," Max shook. He didn't have ten dollars on him, but he knew David had fifteen in his wallet, and he knew that it would take him exactly a minute and thirty seconds to take that wallet if it was on him, so it was really fine. Besides, no matter how aggressive a mother bird was, he was almost certain that Nikki was at least 10% more. Seriously, Max was curious how the hell she’d come to have those crazy people genes. Her mother seemed normal. Well, a bit negligent and kinda a whore, but normal enough, so it must’ve all come from her dad, which he supposed made sense. What could you really expect from a guy called Bear?

Max would never admit it, but he would actually miss Camp Campbell once the summer was over. He knew that even if he got NIkki and Neil’s contact information, there would be no way in hell that he’d actually be allowed to talk to them. So, once summer was over, so was their friendship. The best friends he’d ever made could be gone within days. Minutes even. Typically, these thoughts would make Max want to keep to himself and hide under his blanket or something. Break off their friendship ‘on his own accord’ rather than make it be forced by the end of summer. Man, this was why he hated summer camp. If he hadn’t went, he wouldn’t have made stupid friends and dread when they left. This was a lot to think about.

A rustling from the tree above them made both Neil and Max snap out of their own respective thoughts. They glanced up, hearing Nikki yell some nonsense at the bird. 

“Alright, start counting,” Max ordered, to which Neil obliged.

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Missis-” Neil counted, using the word Mississippi as a spacer so that when he was proven correct, Max couldn’t say he was cheating. Well, so he thought. Halfway through his fifth ‘Mississippi’ there was a victorious shout from their teal haired friend, then she carefully made her way down from the tree, bearing a triumphant smile. Had it been up to her, she probably would have jumped down from the branch she was on, but this always seemed to freak Max out, so when he was around, she tried her best to be a bit more tame.

“Did you guys see that??! That bird tried to attack me! Now she likes me, and my bird is a bit rusty, but I’m pretty sure that I’m the god mom of her birdy kids or something,” She tossed one of her pony tails behind her 

“Damnit, Nikki,” Neil swore, retrieving the money that was due and handing it over to Max, his eyebrows furrowing in irritation. “Why couldn’t you have taken at least two minutes to coerce her into letting you be her child’s godmother? “ He grumbled, but it was pretty light hearted all in all.

“Woah, really? Are you gonna like- give them pyjama’s or whatever god parents do?” Max inquired curiously, sticking the money into his pocket. He had no real use for money at camp, and he actually had decent financial stability in his home life, but there was simply some sort of power to having your own money.

“Oooooh, that’s a good idea! I’m gonna have to learn how to knit so that they’ll be more better!” Nikki’s eyes were practically shining at this idea. Neil and Max both doubted that she would be any good at knitting, but if she wanted to try and put David and Gwen through a personal hell, they’d be more than willing to watch it happen.

“More better isn’t a phrase, Nikki. It’s just better. Though, in this case I think that it’d be more like- meaningful, or something,” Neil corrected. 

“Shut up, Neil,” Max rolled his eyes and stuck his hands in his hoodie pocket. 

“Yeah, okay, I expected that. Sorry Nikki, be more better it is,” Neil responded. He knew it was pointless trying to correct her grammar, because she was like nine years old and she never listened anyways, so he went with it no matter how physically painful it was to say such a grammatically incorrect phrase. 

“It’s okay, Neil, we can’t all be as grammatically good as me,” Nikki responded, and she seemed fully confident in what she was saying. Max had no idea if Nikki knew that the things that she said were just so wrong, and so infuriating to someone like Neil, but she just seemed so oblivious. “Let’s go further! I’m pretty sure I heard a snake or something while I was up there!” She wasted absolutely no time bounding further off into the woods.

“Hold on, how did she even hear anything from up there? She was like 15 feet up?” Neil inquired, following after her. “And like, we were down here and we didn’t hear anything?” It was like every time she spoke he suddenly had several more questions on life than he did a few minutes prior.

“I have ears like a hawk, Neil!” She answered from however far away she was.

“Dude, I think she might be on drugs or something,” Max whispered, though he had a dorky grin on his face.

“Yeah, probably,” Neil agreed. Were there drugs that made your hearing any better? He wasn’t too sure, honestly, and he didn’t think it made sense, but drugs would totally explain the unreasonable amount of energy that she seemed to have. Obviously, he didn’t think that his nine year old best friend was actually on drugs, but it was an amusing thought nonetheless. “Hey, Max, you good?” He lowered his voice slightly in asking this. He didn’t think that Nikki was unreliable or anything, not at all. He knew that Nikki was trustworthy, and she was a great friend and all that, but she wasn’t the best with like, feelings and shit. Though, neither was he, really. Max either. They were like, the worst with that sort of thing, he realized.

Max hesitated for a moment or two, before slowly nodding. “Yeah, I think so. Thanks, Neil,” Max gave him another smile, this one was an attempt at a genuine one, but it was decently awkward.

“Sure, dude,” Neil gave a nonchalant shrug at the thanks, knowing that if he made a big deal out of it, Max would say that he was being totally gay or something. “We better hurry up before Nikki tries to eat fungi or mushrooms or something,” He responded, his eyes moving from looking down at Max, to ahead of them.

“Yeah, probably,” Max agreed. Going back to camp was going to be a lot less shitty.


	9. today on dr. phil- it's not actually dr. phil and we're somehow worse?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey gang, two chapter week as promised! i know this one is a bit shorter than normal, but that's because i didn't want to draw it out too much. next weeks chapter should be a lot longer. also, it's my birthday on friday so yayyyy! anyways, i'm off to go cry about this zit that's on my lip that makes me look like a clown. see you guys later, and happy reading!
> 
> also, this blm link again bc imma keep posting it bc it's still important
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0KC83vYfVQ-2freQveH43PWxuab2uWDEGolzrNolks/mobilebasic
> 
> -ads

“You know, if I didn’t like Ered so much, I’d say that we take extreme sports camp off of our roster next year,” Gwen groaned, wrapping a bandage around her knee. It was bloody, but already covered in Neosporin. How the fuck it was legal to have that fucking ramp? Actually, nevermind, it was definitely not legal. She didn’t know how the Millers would come to their camp time and time again and never call them out for their obviously illegal shit that their kid was actively playing on. It was a mystery that she’d most likely never get to the bottom of. 

“Awe, you finally admit that you like the kids. How sweet,” David gawked, putting numerous bandaids over both his arms and his legs. He wasn’t stupid enough to actually go on the ramp, but the impact from Gwen’s very short lived adventure had flung splinters and miscellaneous parts of both wood and metal everywhere. It was a miracle (if you could call it that) that it was only David and Gwen ended up hurt.

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Shut up. Just because I admit to one kid does not mean that I enjoy them all. They’re irritating little mother fuckers. Ered rarely gets into trouble and keeps to herself. It’s tolerable,” She rolled her eyes. She loved the kids, really and truly, but they had the tendency to get on her last fucking nerves. Besides, admitting she liked them ruined her whole ‘hatred of the world’ demeanor. 

David sat down on the couch after seeming satisfied with where his band aids were placed. He could probably continue placing them for ages, but the camp had very limited resources and he didn’t want to use what little they had. Besides, he was sure that the various cuts and such would heal up just fine without being covered. There were surely no bacterial molecules that would climb into the wounds or anything. Yup. It was gonna be fine. He had no doubt about it.

“You know, Max and his gang were gone all day,” David pointed out. He wasn’t particularly concerned about it. The three often chose to go off and do their own stuff. At first he’d go looking for them and scold them for disappearing, but then he saw them looking all peaceful and not hating the outdoors, (and he realized that unless he gave them his undivided attention at all times they’d continue) so he’d just let it be. He was sure that if they were in any sort of danger, Max wouldn’t hesitate to yell for them and call them absolutely terrible counselors for not keeping good track of their campers or whatever. He was more than used to it, and though he was reluctant about it, he’d come to accept it. He didn’t accept being a shitty counselor or anything, he refused to believe that, but he did accept that Max had a hard time showing his true emotions and that if he wanted to say that he hated David and Gwen then he would allow it to be said.

“Yeah, I noticed. The little cretins dipped like ten seconds into extreme sports. To be fair though, it’s probably better that they did. I don’t know if I want to be the one responsible when Nikki does extreme sports,” Gwen shivered at the mere prospect, and David did the same. He liked to believe that his campers could do anything they set their mind to. He just prayed that Nikki never set her mind to extreme sports. A slight silence ensued before David finally broke it.

“Alright, you know as well as I do that we have to do something, Gwen,” He spoke up. He knew that Gwen really liked to mind her own business and stay out of shit, but surely even she had to realize that this was simply something that they couldn’t put off. 

“Yeah, I know. I just don’t know exactly what to do,” She was sure that if they were to contact social services, there would be enough physical, and most likely emotional damage on the being that is Max to get him out of the situation, but then what? Get him into the system? She knew how brutal foster care could be, and she would be damned if she let that little shit goblin suffer anymore than she already had. Plus, before he even got to that stage, who was to say that he would cooperate? Max was a little shit. He would barely talk to Gwen, someone he’d known for the entire summer and had grown to like. How was he gonna react when some formal asshole in a dress suit showed up and started interrogating him on his personal life?? Her guess would be probably not too well. 

“I mean, there has to be some obvious option. Like something that’s hitting us in the face that we’re just missing,” David too, was well aware that, while talking to social services would be the best choice right then, it may turn out poorly in the long run. So there was an obvious option, and it was hitting them both in the face, they were simply choosing to dance around it.

“Well, on Dr. Phill, he always sits the kids and the parents down together and talks to them both,” Gwen suggested. Why trash t.v. should ever set any kind of example was beyond David’s knowledge, but rather than lead with that, he took a more gentle approach. Kinda.

“Well, this isn’t Dr. Phil, and no offense Gwen,” she shrugged, showing that before she even heard what he had to say, she probably agreed “but I think that we’re both somehow worse at dealing with this stuff than he is,” He didn’t watch reality television, he didn’t want his brain to rot or any of that, but he wasn’t an idiot. Even he knew that Dr. Phil was the weird guy who sent kids to a farm or something when they misbehaved. “Besides, I don’t even want to see those guys. I doubt Max would either,”

“Good point. I’m pretty sure his stuff is all fake anyways,” She finished up with the bandage, which she’d completely forgotten about whilst they were talking, and used a piece of duct tape to keep it from unravelling. Figuring they couldn’t dodge it forever, Gwen gave a dramatic groan. “I guess we could call child services. It’d be shitty for him to be stuck in the system, but I think it would be best if we got him out of the dangerous environment that he’s in.” Man, sometimes being responsible sucked ass. “Maybe if we’re lucky, we can find someone that one of us knows that would be willing to foster him,” she suggested. She knew it was unlikely- most of her friends were 25-30 year olds who had no sense of direction in their life and had no idea what they were doing, thus hardly leaving them in the position to be a foster parent, but it was worth a shot. Besides, even if none of her friends were down, David always had the sort of personality of someone who’s friends with a lot of parents or older people, so surely there’d be more luck on his end.

"Yeah, you're right," David agreed, his typically bubbly persona dimming ever so slightly. He hated knowing that anyone could just take in Max, but there was, of course, the possibility of them knowing someone. David personally knew quite a few people that were potential foster parents. You couldn’t take classes on foster parenting for four months and not know any. Wait a minute-

“Wait- David, aren’t you a certified foster parent?” Gwen asked. Now, Gwen didn’t poke into her co-counselors life all that much- she had her own shit to deal with, and also she didn’t really care at all, but she kept in contact with him even after summers. She made sure he was still alive and doing okay. Though she’d never admit it, she enjoyed being his camp buddy for life, and she wanted to make sure he wasn’t planning on offing himself or something. A year or so ago, she remembered he was losing his fucking mind about finally finishing his courses to be a foster parent. To be real, she didn’t even know that single people could even be foster parents, but she had never really delved into it, so it didn’t really surprise her. It also didn’t surprise her that David wanted to be a foster parent. He had that same vibe as like- those parents from Beetlejuice. The Maitlands or whatever. 

“I- Oh yeah, I am,” David felt his cheeks go pink in embarrassment. He didn’t know why he hadn’t been the one to remember that, considering he’d been the one who’d gone through all the classes and stuff, but the important part was that it was now remembered.

“Jesus, David,” Gwen rubbed her temples. She had no idea how this camp would manage without her. Honestly, she made a big show of hating the camp and wanting a different job with passion, but she was pretty sure that if she left, the place would be in shambles. Hell, like the second week she’d had to save David and the kids from a platypus. A fucking platypus. She didn’t even know that those bastards lived in Ohio, let alone the woods of their shitty camp. Why had David thought to lead the campers to the pier? The worst possible place for that situation? She had no idea, but she did know that she’d had to pick herself up despite absolutely dreadful menstruation cramps because she’d heard feminine shrieking. (which she’d later learned was not, in fact, one of the campers, but David.) Honestly, she was pretty sure that she was the glue that was holding this place together. “You’re an idiot,” She added on, before shaking her head. Alright Gwen, focus. “We’ll call someone. I’ll occupy the kids with something that they won’t want to step away from, you handle Max and whoever comes over.” The plan seemed simple enough. Sure, the kids would most certainly push her to her limits, but she would be okay with it.

“Yeah, alright. That seems like a good idea,” Man, Gwen was so smart. She always seemed to know how to handle more professional situations. Don’t get it twisted, David was smart. He worked as a data entry clerk- a work from home job that paid $750 a week, and it wasn’t a job that anyone off the streets could simply apply for and get. No, you had to have some brains to you, and he did. He simply enjoyed socializing a bit too much, and tended to not be the best when dealing with more serious topics when he had to actually talk it out. That was why he worked from home. He had the opportunity to socialize much less, thus allowing him to focus more on working than other shit.

“Well, call,” Gwen urged, retrieving her phone before even being asked to do so. It was unlikely that David had his phone considering after the campfire Max and his gang had returned and Max had hovered near the ginger for a suspiciously long amount of time before telling him to fuck off and nodding towards Neil and NIkki to head back to their tent. It took a few seconds to like- find the phone number and for David to work up enough nerve to call (after about ten seconds of this, Gwen rolled her eyes and dialed herself) child protective services had been called. After a lengthy conversation, the two were informed that a worker would be able to come down to the camp the next day around noon. This was a good thing. Well, kind of, considering the facts that neither of them really knew how they should deal with this situation and that their sham of a camp could certainly provoke questions. Well, if it was fine by two FBI agents standards, surely CPS would think the same. Yup, totally.

“Alright, well..” Gwen began once she hung up the phone and tossed it onto the coffee table. She’d have to retrieve it before they went to sleep, lest the little demon known as Max try and take it. Of course, her phone was password protected, unlike David’s, but she was sure that if he tried hard enough, he could figure it out. “We should probably get to bed. Big day tomorrow,” she stood up, making a face when her knee actually had to do its job and help her to stand. She hated sports. 

“Yup,” David agreed, though he made no move to actually stand up. They stayed in silence for a minute before Gwen sat back down and turned the television on.

“Alright, neither of us are actually going to sleep. Wanna watch Twilight again?” She asked. They only had the shitty DVD player in their cabin, which was probably as old as Campbell himself, so the only thing that they could actually watch was whatever DVDs that they brought each summer. They always brought usually the same things. David brought shit like nature documentaries and Rob Boss shit, whilst Gwen always brought absolutely terrible romance films, such as Twilight (suck it, Twilight). Honestly, she didn’t even like Twilight all that much anymore, but she never remembered to buy new DVDs after the summer so she was stuck with the same ones that she’d had for the last twelve years, give or take. With the amount of times that they’d watched the films, they could probably quote it word for word, if they really wanted to. Neither of them really wanted to, but they totally could. 

“Alright, sounds good,” David agreed, settling in his armchair. He’d usually offer to make hot cocoa, but he was much too worried about the next day to even think about it. He was also angry. Angry that people would hurt a kid, especially a kid like Max, and angry that they needed to call CPS in the first place. David was hardly one to get angry, but there were definite exceptions and this whole situation was one of them. He was a typically happy and bright person, but there were some things that made him realize just how much people suck.


	10. a//n 😳

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oopsies

before you get misled, im not ending this shit. im just busy as fuck

hi! im A and i just turned 17 years old. i have a job that leaves me working pretty much every fucking day lmao. i love writing it's one of my favourite things to do, i just dont have a lot of time to do it.

im not stopping the adventures of bitchface and go fuck yourself, but i want to put as much detail into this chapter as possible because this is an important chapter, so yeah ^^" 

anyways, i decided that im not promising a chapter every week bc obviously that shit isn't going well lmao, so i'll post as often as possible lmao.

sorry guys, i hope u stick with my random updates, but if you dont, that's fine too, i hope u tune in whenever it's over to see how it ends lmao. much love!!


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